Quotes from Aleister Crowley

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

If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad.

Religion itself becomes offensively monotonous. On every point of vantage are pagodas -- stupid stalagmites of stagnant piety.

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.

Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.

Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.

We place no reliance On virgin or pigeon; Our Method is Science, Our Aim is Religion.

The old spelling MAGICK has been adopted throughout in order to distinguish the Science of the Magi from all its counterfeits.

Practically, Science is true; and Faith is foolish.

Love is the only principle which makes life tolerable.

Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life.

Tell the truth, but lead so improbable a life that the truth will never be believed.

To resist and subdue Nature is to make for one's self a personal and imperishable life: it is to break free from the vicissitudes of Life and Death.

The love and war in the previous injunctions are of the nature of sport, where one respects, and learns from the opponent, but never interferes with him, outside the actual game. To seek to dominate or influence another is to seek to deform or destroy him; and he is a necessary part of one's own Universe, that is, of one's self.

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

She knew that she belonged to this man, body and soul. Every trace of shame departed; it was burnt out by the fire that consumed her. She gave him a thousand opportunities; she fought to turn his words to serious things. He baffled her with his shallow smile and ready tongue, that twisted all topics to triviality. By six o'clock she was morally on her knees before him; she was imploring him to stay to dinner with her. He refused.

Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations

He shall fall down into a pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of reason.

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

The most delicious sensation of all is the re-birth of healthy human love. Spring coming back to Earth!

Some men are born sodomites, some achieve sodomy, and some have sodomy thrust upon them...

The key of joy is disobedience.

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union.