Quotes from Marie Corelli

I trusted in friendship rather than love

There, the sublime, unreachable mysteries of the Universe are haggled over by poor finite minds who cannot call their lives their own. There, nation wars against nation, creed against creed, soul against soul. Alas, fated planet! how soon shalt thou be extinct, and thy place shall know thee no more!

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.

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.

My aim throughout is to let facts speak for themselves. If they seem strange, unreal, even impossible, I can only say that the things of the invisible world must always appear so to those whose thoughts and desires are centred on this life only.

Humanity is only capable of worshipping Self — thus, it is necessary, that when people are persuaded to pay honor to an elected Divinity, they should be well and comfortably assured in their own minds that they are but offering homage to an Image of Self placed before them in a deified or heroic form. This satisfies the natural idolatrous cravings of Egotism, and this is all that priests or teachers desire.

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.

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!

all the best, greatest, purest and worthiest things in life are beyond all market-value and that the gifts of the gods are not for sale.

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.

I never married because I have three pets at home that answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning, a parrot that swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night.