Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death -- a state which I feared yet did not understand. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
About This Quote

The idea that the mind can be overcome is a frightening one. There are many things in life that cause us to suffer and pain is one of them. Knowledge is a strange thing, it sticks to us when we least expect it. Even though we know that knowledge causes suffering, we still seek out knowledge with the expectation that it will make us happy. The mind takes hold of knowledge like a lichen on an exposed rock.

Source: Frankenstein

Some Similar Quotes
  1. We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that... - C. Joybell C.
  2. The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  3. Most of us must learn to love people and use things rather than loving things and using people. - Roy T. Bennett
  4. Before, I wanted to say: "I found love! " But now, I want to say: "I found a person. And he belongs to me and I belong to him. - C. Joybell C.
  5. Because I trust in the ever-changing climate of the heart. (At least, today I feel that way.) I think it is necessary to have many experiences for the sake of feeling something; for the sake of being challenged, and for the sake of being expressive,... - Jason Mraz
More Quotes By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  1. Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
  2. No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
  3. There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.
  4. Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
  5. One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being...
Related Topics