“When I returned home my [Victor Frankenstein] first care was to procure the whole works of this author [Cornelius Agrippa] (Cattell 1000:c.660) (Ѻ), and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labor and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy's apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.”

— Mary Shelley (1818), Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus (§2)

“Beware; I am fearless and therefore powerful.”

— Mary Shelley (c.1830) (Ѻ)

“Many and long were the conversations Lord Byron and [Percy] Shelley, to which I was a devout, but nearly silent listener. During one of these various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and, among others, the nature of the principle of life and whether there as any probability of it ever being discovered and communicated. [Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated? Galvanism had given a token of such things].”

— Mary Shelley (1831), Preface to Frankenstein, reflections (Ѻ) on her summer of 1816 [2]