Quote collection
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"How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle! Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed to any other qualities than those of brutes."
"Genuine recollections almost invariably explain oneself to oneself. Suppose, for example, that you feel an instinctive aversion to some particular kind of wine. Try as you will, you can find no reason for it. Suppose when you explore a previous incarnation, you remember you died by a poisoned administered in a wine of that kind, your aversion is explained by the proverb: 'A burnt child dreads the fire.'"
"Love is the law, love under will."
"Astrology has no more useful function than this, to discover the inmost nature of a man and to bring it out into his consciousness, that he may fulfil it according to the law of light."
"I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck."
"But neither Europe nor Africa can show any such desolation as America. The proudest, stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain, the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the most charming and cultured people."
"The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament."
"I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is THELEMA ."
"The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable."
"He shall fall down into a pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of reason."
"For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
"Practically, Science is true; and Faith is foolish."
"Your kiss is bitter with cocaine."
"30. If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops an does naught. 31. If power asks why, then power is weakness."
"The absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will."
"The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible."
"Destiny is an absolutely definite and inexorable ruler. Physical ability and moral determination count for nothing. It is impossible to perform the simplest act when the gods say no. I have no idea how they bring pressure to bear on such occasions; I only know that it is irresistible."
"All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself"
"There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son."
"Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle."