Aleister Crowley Quotes

Learn this, as we pass through the portico:
Fear nothing; there is nothing you can know!
And by these terraces and steps that gleam
Wintry, although the summer night is hot,
This — what we seek is never what we find!
Life is a dream, like love; and from the dream
If we may wake, we never find it what
We would; for the wisdom of a mightier mind
Leads us in its own ways
To a perfected praise.

... it was once necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest possible words.... I did so.
“Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out!”
The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.

Για μένα, ένα βιβλίο είναι ένα μήνυμα από τους θεούς προς την ανθρωπότητα. Αν δεν είναι έτσι, καλύτερα να μην εκδοθεί ποτέ.

A man friends are more capable of working him harm than strangers; and his greatest
danger lies in his own habits.

The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.

There is little danger that any student, however idle or stupid, will fail to get some result; but there is great danger that he will be led astray, obsessed and overwhelmed by his results, even though it be by those which it is necessary that he should attain. Too often, moreover, he mistaketh the first resting-place for the goal, and taketh off his armour as if he were a victor ere the fight is well begun. It is desirable that the student should never attach to any result the importance which it at first seems to possess.

"In order to possess "The Wonder-working Serpent," it is necessary, in the words of the Grimoire, "to buy an egg without haggling," which (by the way) indicates the class of person for and by whom the book was written. This egg is to be buried in a cemetery at midnight, and every morning at sunrise it must be watered with brandy. On the ninth day a spirit appears, and demands your purpose. You reply "I am watering my plant." This occurs on three successive days; at the midnight following the egg is dug up, and found to contain a serpent, with a cock's head. This amiable animal answers to the name of Ambrosiel. Carry it in your bosom, and your suit inevitably prospers."

Sleep I forget. Her silky breath no longer fans my ears; I dream I float on some forgotten stream that hath a saviour still of death,

El más grave de todos los ´pecados´ es el autoengaño

There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son.

In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep ;
But in the end we lift the plumèd casque
Of the dead warrior ;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling whore.

It is necessary, in this world, to be made of harder stuff than one's environment.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare — lorries or no lorries — and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest — or your host — if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.

The true man of genius deliberately subordinates himself, reduces himself to a negative, and allows his genius to play through him as It will. We all know how stupid we are when we try to do things. Seek to make any other muscle work as consistently as your heart does without your silly interference — you cannot keep it up for forty-eight hours.

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.