Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) Quotes

“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!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“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.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Nothing is more strange than truth — nothing, at times, more terrible!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Like it!” I exclaimed. “It is lovely — wonderful! It is worthy to rank with the finest Italian masterpieces.” “Oh, no!” remonstrated Zara; “no, indeed! When the great Italian sculptors lived and worked — ah! one may say with the Scriptures, ‘There were giants in those days.’ Giants — veritable ones; and we modernists are the pigmies. We can only see Art now through the eyes of others who came before us. We cannot create anything new. We look at painting through Raphael; sculpture through Angelo; poetry through Shakespeare; philosophy through Plato. It is all done for us; we are copyists. The world is getting old — how glorious to have lived when it was young! But nowadays the very children are blase.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“We live in an age of universal inquiry, ergo of universal scepticism. The prophecies of the poet, the dreams of the philosopher and scientist, are being daily realized — things formerly considered mere fairy-tales have become facts — yet, in spite of the marvels of learning and science that are hourly accomplished among us, the attitude of mankind is one of disbelief. “There is no God!” cries one theorist; “or if there be one, I can obtain no proof of His existence!” “There is no Creator!” exclaims another. “The Universe is simply a rushing together of atoms.” “There can be no immortality,” asserts a third. “We are but dust, and to dust we shall return.” “What is called by idealists the SOUL,” argues another, “is simply the vital principle composed of heat and air, which escapes from the body at death, and mingles again with its native element. A candle when lit emits flame; blow out the light, the flame vanishes — where? Would it not be madness to assert the flame immortal? Yet the soul, or vital principle of human existence, is no more than the flame of a candle.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“And indeed she did not. I thought she had a tired, dragged appearance, but I would not say so. I knew her well, and I was perfectly aware that though she was fascinating and elegant in every way, her life was too much engrossed in trifles ever to yield her healthy satisfaction.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Now thou dost believe — henceforth thou must love! Love alone can pass yon flaming barrier — love alone can gain for thee eternal bliss. In love and for love were all things made — God loveth His creatures, even so let His creatures love Him, and so shall the twain be drawn together.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“I am not so sure about that,” he returned. “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.” “The truest philosophy,” said Heliobas, “is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of its coming.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“I am told that it is no longer fashionable to believe in a devil — but I care nothing for fashion! A devil there is I am sure, who for some inscrutable reason has a share in the ruling of this planet — a devil who delights in mocking us from the cradle to the grave.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“the swinging pendulum of HUMAN WILL, which decides our fate. God does not choose for us, or compel our love — we are free to fashion out our own futures; but in making our final choice we cannot afford to waste one moment of our precious, unreturning time. MARIE CORELLI.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Suicide during a state of temporary insanity,” is passed, have been caused by long and hopeless brooding on the “nothingness of the Universe” — which, if it were a true theory, would indeed make of Creation a bitter, nay, even a senseless jest. The cruel preachers of such a creed have much to answer for. The murderer who destroys human life for wicked passion and wantonness is less criminal than the proudly learned, yet egotistical, and therefore densely ignorant scientist, who, seeking to crush the soul by his feeble, narrow-minded arguments, and deny its imperishable nature, dares to spread his poisonous and corroding doctrines of despair through the world, draining existence of all its brightness, and striving to erect barriers of distrust between the creature and the Creator. No sin can be greater than this; for it is impossible to estimate the measure of evil that may thus be brought into otherwise innocent and happy lives. The attitude of devotion and faith is natural to Humanity, while nothing can be more UNnatural and disastrous to civilization, morality and law, than deliberate and determined Atheism. — AUTHOR.]”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Go, all of you, scum of Paris!” he cried in his clear treble tones— “you who know neither God nor devil! You will have your money — more than your share — what else seek you? You have served one of the noblest of men; and because he is so great and wise and true, you judge him a fiend! Oh, so like the people of Paris — they who pervert all things till they think good evil and evil good! Look you! you have worked for your wages; but I have worked for HIM — I would starve with him, I would die for him! For to me he is not fiend, but Angel!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“In these enlightened times, mademoiselle, we only believe what is agreeable to us, and what suits our own wishes, tastes, and opinions. Ca va sans dire. We cannot be forced to accept a Deity against our reason. That is a grand result of modern education.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“It is useless for you to consider the reason of this, or the meaning of that. Take things as they come in due order: one circumstance explains the other, and everything is always for the best.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“There, wealth is a god, and the greed of gain a virtue. There, genius starves, and heroism dies unrewarded. There, faith is martyred, and unbelief elected sovereign monarch of the people. 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!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“For is there any human sorrow so great that the blessing of mere daylight on the earth does not far exceed? We mortals are spoilt and petted children — the more gifts we have the more we crave; and when we burn or wound ourselves by our own obstinacy or carelessness, we are ungratefully prone to blame the Supreme Benefactor for our own faults.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Suddenly the idea struck me that surely it was selfish to ask Heaven for anything; would it not be better to reflect on all that had already been given to me, and to offer up thanks? Scarcely had this thought entered my mind when a sort of overwhelming sense of unworthiness came over me. Had I ever been unhappy? I wondered. If so, why? I began to count up my blessings and compare them with my misfortunes. Exhausted pleasure-seekers may be surprised to hear that I proved the joys of my life to have far exceeded my sorrows. I found that I had sight, hearing, youth, sound limbs, an appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, and an intense power of enjoyment”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.
She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,
Nor see love’s ways, how sore they are and steep.
Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough.
Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;
And though she saw all heaven in flower above,
             She would not love!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“You have been led astray, my child, by the conflicting and vain opinions of mankind. You, like many others in the world, delight to question, to speculate, to weigh this, to measure that, with little or no profit to yourself or your fellow-creatures. And you have come freshly from a land where, in the great Senate-house, a poor perishable lump of clay calling itself a man, dares to stand up boldly and deny the existence of God, while his compeers, less bold than he, pretend a holy displeasure, yet secretly support him — all blind worms denying the existence of the sun; a land where so-called Religion is split into hundreds of cold and narrow sects, gatherings assembled for the practice of hypocrisy, lip-service and lies — where Self, not the Creator, is the prime object of worship; a land, mighty once among the mightiest, but which now, like an over-ripe pear, hangs loosely on its tree, awaiting but a touch to make it fall!”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“What do I mean, you ask, by accepting everything as it comes, and trying to find out the reason of its coming? Why, I mean what I say. Each circumstance that happens to each one of us brings its own special lesson and meaning — forms a link or part of a link in the chain of our existence. It seems nothing to you that you walk down a particular street at a particular hour, and yet that slight action of yours may lead to a result you wot not of. ‘Accept the hint of each new experience,’ says the American imitator of Plato — Emerson. If this advice is faithfully followed, we all have enough to occupy us busily from the cradle to the grave.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Never shall I forget the exquisite sensation I experienced! I can only describe it as the poor little Doll’s Dressmaker in “Our Mutual Friend” described her angel visitants, her “blessed children,” who used to come and “take her up and make her light.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“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?”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“I beg your earnest attention, mademoiselle, for what I say concerning THE RARE FEW WITH WHOM THE SOUL IS EVERYTHING. YOU are one of those few, unless I am greatly in error. And you have sacrificed your body so utterly to your spirit that the flesh rebels and suffers. This will not do. You have work before you in the world, and you cannot perform it unless you have bodily health as well as spiritual desire. And why? Because you are a prisoner here on earth, and you must obey the laws of the prison, however unpleasant they may be to you. Were you free as you have been in ages past and as you will be in ages to come, things would be different; but at present you must comply with the orders of your gaolers — the Lords of Life and Death.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“How many bottles of your tastily prepared and expensive medicines have I not swallowed, in blind confidence and blinder ignorance of the offences I thus committed against all the principles of that Nature within me, which, if left to itself, always heroically struggles to recover its own proper balance and effect its own cure; but which, if subjected to the experimental tests of various poisons or drugs, often loses strength in the unnatural contest and sinks exhausted, perhaps never to rise with actual vigour again.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“A faithless and perverse generation asketh for a sign, and no sign shall be given unto them.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“Unbelief is nearly supreme in the world to-day. Were an angel to descend from heaven in the middle of a great square, the crowd would think he had got himself up on pulleys and wires, and would try to discover his apparatus. Were he, in wrath, to cast destruction upon them, and with fire blazing from his wings, slay a thousand of them with the mere shaking of a pinion, those who were left alive would either say that a tremendous dynamite explosion had occurred, or that the square was built on an extinct volcano which had suddenly broken out into frightful activity. Anything rather than believe in angels — the nineteenth century protests against the possibility of their existence.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)

“If you propound to these theorists the eternal question WHY? — why is the world in existence? why is there a universe? why do we live? why do we think and plan? why do we perish at the last? — their grandiose reply is, “Because of the Law of Universal Necessity.” They cannot explain this mysterious Law to themselves, nor can they probe deep enough to find the answer to a still more tremendous WHY — namely, WHY, is there a Law of Universal Necessity? — but they are satisfied with the result of their reasonings, if not wholly, yet in part, and seldom try to search beyond that great vague vast Necessity, lest their finite brains should reel into madness worse than death.”
― Marie Corelli, Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)