"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul ..." — Mary Shelley

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse.

But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.