Marie Corelli Quotes

Man, as a purely natural creature, fairly educated, but wholly unspiritualized, is a mental composition of: Hunger, Curiosity, Self-Esteem, Avarice, Cowardice, Lust, Cruelty, Personal Ambition; and on these vile qualities alone our 'society' hangs together; the virtues have no place anywhere, and do not count at all, save as conveniently pious metaphors.

Religion is poetry, - poetry is religion.

For though there never was so much reading matter put before the public, there was never less actual 'reading' in the truest and highest sense of the term than there is at present.

I must not say what I truly think, or you will tell me I flatter you-but I can only speak what I feel-and very often I cannot even do that when the feeling is very deep.

The Browning love story? It is an ideal, all too rare, and yet I hardly think it strange. It would have been far stranger had the fates allowed those two brilliant passionate souls to beat themselves out in silence.

When one loves God better than the Church is one called a heretic?

If men were true to their immortal instincts and to the God that made them, - if they were generous, honest, fearless, faithful, reverent, unselfish, ... if women were pure, brave, tender and loving, - can you not imagine that in the strong force and fairness of such a world, 'Lucifer, son of the Morning' would be moved to love instead of hate? - that the closed doors of Paradise would be unbarred - and that he, lifted towards his Creator on the prayers of pure lives, would wear again his Angel's crown? Can you not realize this, even by way of a legendary story?

Whoever seeks to live by brain and pen alone is, at the beginning of such a career, treated as a sort of social pariah.

I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.

Nothing gives small minds a better handle for hatred than superiority ...

So you are tired of your life, young man! All the more reason have you to live. Anyone can die. A murderer has moral force enough to jeer at his hangman. It is very easy to draw the last breath. It can be accomplished successfully by a child or a warrior. One pang of far less anguish than the toothache, and all is over. There is nothing heroic about it, I assure you! It is as common as going to bed; it is almost prosy. Life is heroism, if you like; but death is a mere cessation of business. And to make a rapid and rude exit off the stage before the prompter gives the sign is always, to say the least of it, ungraceful. Act the part out, no matter how bad the play. What say you?

It seems a silly kind o' business to bring us into the world at all for no special reason 'cept to take us out of it again just as folks 'ave learned to know us a bit and find us useful.

Greatness is always envied - it is only mediocrity that can boast of a host of friends.

The hypocrisy and social sham of the world, and that I have mastered the following hard truths of life--that there is no love without lust--no friendship without self-interest--no religion without avarice--and no so-called virtue without its accompanying stronger vice. Who, knowing these things, would care to take part in them!

No fame is actually worth much now-a-days, - because it is not classic fame, strong in reposeful old-world dignity, - it is blatant noisy notoriety merely.

Years should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or consider them? In the world of wild Nature, time is measured by seasons only-the bird does not know how old it is-the rose-tree does not count its birthdays!

An opinion which excites no opposition at all is not worth having!

Patriotism is understood to be that virtue which consists in serving one's country; but in what way is this 'Patria' or country served by slaying its able bodied men in thousands?

Well I am glad I have something of the fool in my disposition
foolishness being the only quality that makes wisdom possible.

My friend, I assure you, if you have won a true woman's true love, you have a far greater fortune than your millions
a treasure that none can afford to despise.

Imagination is the supreme endowment of the poet and romanticist. It is a kind of second sight, which conveys the owner of it to places he has never seen, and surrounds him with strange circumstances of which he is merely the spiritual eyewitness.

If we choose to be no more than clods of clay, then we shall be used as clods of day for braver feet to tread on.

The Church is a system, - but whether it is as much founded on the teaching of our Lord, who was divine, as on the teaching of St. Paul, who was not divine, is a question to me of much perplexity.

Fame, or notoriety, whichever that special noise may be called when the world like a hound 'gives tongue' and announces that the quarry in some form of genius is at bay, is apt to increase its clamor in proportion to the aloofness of the pursued animal ...

You should always be well and bright, for so you do your best work; and you have so much beautiful work to do. The world needs it, and you must give it!

Pleasure for others is the only pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish! - I'm greedy for the happiness of those I love - and if they can't or won't be happy I'm perfectly miserable.

I am going to make you what you may perhaps consider rather a singular proposition. It is this, that if you don't like me, say so at once, and we will part now, before we have time to know anything more of each other, and I will endeavour not to cross your path again unless you seek me out. But if on the contrary, you do like me, - if you find something in my humour or turn of mind congenial to your own disposition, give me your promise that you will be my friend and comrade for a while, say for a few months at any rate. I can take you into the best society, and introduce you to the prettiest women in Europe as well as the most brilliant men. I know them all, and I believe I can be useful to you. But if there is the smallest aversion to me lurking in the depths of your nature" - here he paused, - then resumed with extraordinary solemnity - "in God's name give it full way and let me go, - because I swear to you in all sober earnest that I am not what I seem!

There was something else,
something quite undefinable, that gave a singular glow and radiance to the whole countenance, and suggested the burning of a light through alabaster,
a creeping of some subtle fire through the veins which made the fair body seem the mere reflection of some greater fairness within.

A man should choose a wife with a careful eye to his own personal gratification, in the same way that he chooses horses or wine
perfection or nothing.
And the woman?
The woman has really no right of choice, she must mate wherever she has the chance of being properly maintained. A man is always a man
a woman is only a man's appendage, and without beauty she cannot put forth any just claim to his admiration or support.

Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning, - nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call 'logic.' The truest compass of life is spiritual instinct.

Curious that it is impossible for a man to be original without attracting around him a set of unoriginal minds, as though he were a honey-pot and they the flies!

Such lovely warmth of thought and delicacy of colour are beyond all praise, and equally beyond all thanks!

It is not so difficult to win love as to keep it!

A criminal is twice a criminal when he adds hypocrisy to his crime.

There is nothing so inconvenient in this world as an absolutely truthful person, who can both speak and write, and has the courage of his convictions. One can always arrange matters with liars ... But with the man or woman who holds truth dearer than life, and honor more valuable than advancement, there is nothing to be done, now that governments cannot insist on the hemlock-cure, as in the case of Socrates.

Love, if it be love indeed, asks no permission as to where it shall seek vantage ground or gain its victory - it is of all powers the most unfettered and the one which takes the widest course of largest liberty ...

The finest actor is he who play the comedy of life perfectly, as i aspire to do. To walk well, talk well, weep well, laugh well and die well, it is all pure acting, because in every man there is the dumb dreadful immortal spirit who is real- who cannot act, who-is and who steadily maintains an infinite though speechless protest against the body's lies

Was it worth while, he thought, to be so wise, if wisdom made one at times so sad? Was it well to sacrifice Faith for Fact, when Faith was so warm and Fact so cold? Was it better to be a dreamer of things possible, or a worker-out of things positive? And how much was positive, after all, and how much possible? He balanced the question lightly with himself. It was like a discord in the music of his mind, and disturbed his peace.

Art is sexless; - good work is eternal, no matter whether it is man or woman who has accomplished it ... Ah, but the world will never own woman's work to be great even if it be so, because men give the verdict, and man's praise is for himself and his own achievements always.

There never was a Christian save One, and He was crucified.

Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as one's outward appearance. The reason of this is that as soon as childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not
and thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves. It is really wise and clever of us
for hence each individual is so much flesh-wall through which neither friend nor enemy can spy. Every man is a solitary soul imprisoned in a self-made den
when he is quite alone he knows and frequently hates himself
sometimes he even gets afraid of the gaunt and murderous monster he keeps hidden behind his outwardly pleasant body-mask, and hastens to forget its frightful existence in drink and debauchery.

And out of heart's pain comes heart's peace; and out of desire, accomplishment.

What a fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking that by his laughter he shows superiority instead of latent idiocy.

Love clamors far more incessantly and passionately at a closed gate than an open one!

There is no wealth but love.

I trusted in friendship rather than love

The beginning of my history is - love. It is the beginning of every man and every woman's history, if they are only frank enough to admit it.

Though a dealer in meat, groceries, and other food stuffs may obtain compensation if his wares are wilfully misrepresented to the buying public, the purveyor of thoughts or ideas has no remedy when such thoughts or ideas are deliberately and purposefully falsified to the world through the press.

One of the advantages or disadvantages of the way in which we live in these modern days is that we are ceasing to feel. That is to say we do not permit ourselves to be affected by either death or misfortune, provided these natural calamities leave our own persons unscathed.

Takes its colours from the mind, my dear friend;" - he said - "If you discover evil suggestions in my music, the evil, I fear, must be in your own nature.

I can dip the pen in my own blood if I choose.

Hate is a grand, a strong quality! It makes nations, it builds up creeds! If men loved one another what should they need of a Church?

Does one love a statue?" she demanded. "Shall I caress a picture? Shall I rain tears or kisses over the mere semblance of a life that does not live, shall I fondle hands that never return my clasp? Love! Love is in my heart -yes! like a shut-up fire in a tomb,but you hold the key, and the flame dies for want of air.

Wealth acts merely as a kind of mirror to show you human nature at its worst.

No one is contented in this world, I believe. There is always something left to desire, and the last thing longed for always seems the most necessary to happiness.

Be sure that if you are unhappily celebrated for either beauty, wit, intellect, or all three together, half society wishes you dead already, and the other half tries to make you as wretched as possible while you are alive.

I confess I like a woman to have a certain amount of temper. I can not endure your preternaturally amiable female, who can find nothing in the length or breath of the globe to move to any other expression than a fatuous smile. I love to see the danger flash in bright eyes, the delicate quiver in of pride in the lines of a lovely mouth, and the warm flush of indignation on fair cheeks. It all suggests spirit, and untamed will; and rouse in a man the love of mastery that is born in his nature, urging him to conquer and subdue that which seems unconquerable.