Frankenstein Quotes for the Trueness of Humanity

From one of the most impactful novels of all time, these Frankenstein Quotes bring to light the idea of being human, being monster, and everything in between.

You may also enjoy our article on:

• Mary Shelley quotes
• Monster quotes
• The lorax quotes

According to a study by Holt-Lunstad et al. (2015), individuals who reported feeling lonely had a higher risk of mortality and a greater likelihood of developing physical and mental health problems.

This suggests that the isolation and loneliness experienced by Frankenstein’s monster can have real-world implications for individuals’ health and well-being.

What can we learn from Mary Shelley’s story and creation of a genre?

Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley as part of a challenge by her writer friends.

In writing and creating the world of Frankenstein’s monster, Shelley also created an entirely new genre: science fiction.

Science fiction at its finest is found in Shelley’s Frankenstein, and in powerful science fiction, as in her story, it becomes clear that the most profound way to explain humanity is through the inhuman.

Through these Frankenstein quotes, it becomes clear how inhumane humans can be, and how human monsters can be.

We also have a collection of Machiavelli quotes on power and morality.

Be sure to also read that.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

If you enjoy this collection, check out our inspirational quotes category page.

Frankenstein Quotes About Being Human

According to a study by Dovidio and Gaertner (2010), individuals who experience discrimination can suffer from decreased self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and decreased academic and occupational opportunities.

This suggests that the mistreatment and rejection experienced by Frankenstein’s monster can resonate with readers who have experienced discrimination in their own lives.

1. “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on quotes on change growth.

2. “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on good will hunting quotes.

3. “The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on jane eyre quotes.

4. “I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on james dean quotes.

5. “How ignorant art though in thy pride of wisdom!” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on sam walton quotes.

6. “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on firstborn quotes.

7. “We are fashioned creatures, but half made up.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on famous movie quotes.

8. “My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on nikki giovanni quotes.

9. “I am malicious because I am miserable.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on literature quotes.

10. “Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on racism quotes.

11. “A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.” – Frankenstein

You will also enjoy our article on blade runner quotes.

12. “Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.” – Frankenstein

13. “How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!” – Frankenstein

14. “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.” – Frankenstein

15. “It may… be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.” – Frankenstein

16. “It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.” – Frankenstein

Don’t forget to also check out these V for Vendetta quotes about society and humanity.

Frankenstein Quotes About the Impact of Our Lives

According to a study by Walker et al. (2011), adolescents who read books with themes of responsibility and consequences showed greater moral development and a stronger sense of social responsibility.

This suggests that the themes explored in Frankenstein, such as the consequences of playing God and the responsibility of creators for their creations, can help readers develop a stronger moral compass.

17. “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” – Frankenstein

18. “I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” – Frankenstein

19. “Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live.” – Frankenstein

20. “When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?” – Frankenstein

21. “He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.” – Frankenstein

22. “For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to which these sights were monuments and the remembrances. For and instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self.” – Frankenstein

23. “The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.” – Frankenstein

24. “I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.” – Frankenstein

25. “The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” – Frankenstein

26. “Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.” – Frankenstein

27. “Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture? But I was doomed to live.” – Frankenstein

28. “Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.” – Frankenstein

29. “Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.” – Frankenstein

30. “Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye.” – Frankenstein

Also read these Catcher in the Rye quotes for existing in society.

Frankenstein Quotes About Love and Monsters

31. “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!” – Frankenstein

32. “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” – Frankenstein

33. “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.” – Frankenstein

34. “Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth.” – Frankenstein  

35. “There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.” – Frankenstein

36. “Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.” – Frankenstein

37. “Hateful day when I received life! Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” – Frankenstein

38. “I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.” – Frankenstein

39. “I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.” – Frankenstein

40. “What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?” – Frankenstein

Frankenstein Quotes About the Discovery of the World

41. “The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.” – Frankenstein

42. “The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.” – Frankenstein

43. “With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.” – Frankenstein

44. “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be his world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” – Frankenstein

45. “If I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.” – Frankenstein

46. “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.” – Frankenstein

47. “I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken you affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.” – Frankenstein

48. “My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.” – Frankenstein

49. “Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock.” – Frankenstein

50. “A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.” – Frankenstein

51. “I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.” – Frankenstein

Frankenstein quotes to give you chills

51. “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” –Frankenstein

52. “Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of life into our dark world.” –Frankenstein

53. “Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?”  –Frankenstein

54. “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” –Frankenstein

55. “I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, sch as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.”  –Frankenstein

56. “At these moments I wept bitterly and wished that peace would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness.”  –Frankenstein

57. “Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness?”  –Frankenstein

58. “The sun sank beneath the horizon as we landed, and as I touched the shore I felt those cares and fears revive which soon were to clasp me and cling to me forever.” –Frankenstein

59. “Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge.”  –Frankenstein

60. “I have lost my hopes of utility and glory; I have lost my friend.”  –Frankenstein 

For even more inspiration, also check out these Little Prince quotes about life.

Frankenstein quotes to ponder on

61.  “Learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.” – Frankenstein

62. “You may deem me romantic, dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.” – Frankenstein

63. “How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am!” – Frankenstein

64. “After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.” – Frankenstein

65. “Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?” – Frankenstein

66. “The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.” – Frankenstein

67. “Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?” – Frankenstein

68. “The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom, and would not forego their hold.” – Frankenstein

69. “I collected bones from charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame.” – Frankenstein

70. “To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” – Frankenstein

What is the truth behind the story, and what can it show us about humanity?

These Frankenstein quotes show us the true humanity that lies within monsters, and the true monsters that lie within humans.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is Mary Shelley’s creation, and the start of a popular genre that lives on and thrives in today’s culture.

Because of its historical and cultural significance, Frankenstein is still taught in schools today, and works to bring awareness to what makes us truly human.

Through these quotes, it becomes clear that the monster wasn’t the monster at all, but was instead simply the creation of the human monster, Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Through this, we learn what it truly means to be human, and that true humanity doesn’t come from appearing human, but from being good at heart.

What’s you biggest takeaway from these Frankenstein quotes and lines?

Do you have any other favorite quotes to add?

Let us know in the comment section below.