Aleister Crowley Quotes

"In the absence of will-power the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless."

"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."

"To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter."

"To the eyes of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them."

"Part of the public horror of sexual irregularity so-called is due to the fact that everyone knows himself essentially guilty."

"Intolerance is evidence of impotence."

"Indubitably, Magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics."

"The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing."

"The people who have really made history are the martyrs."

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

"In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless."

"Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales."

"Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life."

"The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal."

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning."

"I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner."

"Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people."

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

"Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another."

"Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle."