A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.

I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.

I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.

There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious - painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour - but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.

Sorrow only increased with knowledge.

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.