Quotes from Aleister Crowley

Her cheeks were bright with a soft vermilion of the pomegranate mingling with the whiteness of the lily.

Time and Space are Adverbs.

I wrenched DOG backwards to find GOD; now GOD barks.

When we've all finished talking, there's something that never utters a word, but goes right down through the earth, plumb to the centre.

Shallow thinkers always seem to be obsessed by the stupidity that if anything is a shadow, dream, illusion, it ceases to exist.

This is th' abyss. Behold wherein I lurk The lazar-house my mind, wherein do work The horrid charnel-priests, whose loathly song Sickens my soul, and quells the spirit strong.

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

Who hath the how is careless of the why

Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it. Die Daily.

I became an entirely different animal. In fact, I've often thought that there isn't any I at all ; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.

My friend tells me that memory fails me in part because nature mercifully wishes to hide from us things which are painful. The spider-web of protective forgetfulness is woven over the mouth of the cave which conceals the raw head and bloody bones of our misfortunes. But the greatest men, says King Lamus, are those that refuse to be treated like squalling children, who insist on facing reality in every form, and tear off ruthlessly the bandages from their own wounds.

All this is true and false; and it is true and false to say that it is true and false.

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.

Look at the testimony of literature. In the days of chivalry our sympathies go with the Knight-errant, who redresses wrongs; with the King, whose courage and wisdom deliver his people from their enemies. But when Kingship became tyranny, and feudalism oppression, we took our heroes from the rebels. Robin Hood, Hereward the Wake, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Rob Roy; it was always the Under Dog that appealed to the artist.

Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license.

the true test of the perversity of a pleasure is that it occupies a disproportionate amount of the attention.

The mystic's idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying himself is an abomination unto the Lord. This, by the way, does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind of suppression is comparable to the restrictions in athletic training, or diet in sickness.

The seal of Reason, made impregnable: _ The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid: The seal of Brotherhood, man's miracle: _ The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended: The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell: _ The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended: The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken, God sets His thunder and earthquake for a token.

To argue:...only causes us to fall into the pit of Because, and there to perish with the dogs of Reason.

It is true that some of the so-called secrets are significant, but as a rule they are so only to those who already know what the secret is.

Yet by forcing the brain to accept propositions of which one set is absurdity, the other truism, a  new function of brain is established.

In brief, we govern by a mixture of lying and bullying. ---(From the pamphlet: The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government.)

I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on  awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.

It is as if the first diviner of absinthe had been indeed a magician intent upon a combination of sacred drugs which should cleanse, fortify and perfume the human soul.