Quotes from Aleister Crowley

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.

Man has the right . . . to play as he will . . . to think what he will: to speak what he will: to write what he will: to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will: to dress as he will.

Alas the Master; so he sinks in death. But whoso knows the mystery of man Sees life and death as curves of the same plan

It is only necessary to destroy in oneself the roots of those motives which determine a man's course, in order to enjoy the omnipotence and immunity of a god.

What is necessary is not to seek after some fantastic ideal, utterly unsuited to our real needs, but to discover the true nature of those needs, to fulfill them, and rejoice therein.

The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.

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

I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul

I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered — now I have only one doubt left — which of the twain was God?

I am alone. There is no God where I am.

The people who have really made history are the martyrs.

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

The conscience of the world is so guilty that it always assumes that people who investigate heresies must be heretics just as if a doctor who studies leprosy must be a leper. Indeed, it is only recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach.

Men and women are not free to love decently until they have analyzed themselves completely and swept away every mystery from sex; and this means the acquisition of a profound philosophical theory based on wide reading of anthropology and enlightened practice.

The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without. Inevitably anyone with an independent mind must become "one who resists or opposes authority or established conventions": a rebel. If enough people come to agree with, and follow, the Rebel, we now have a Devil. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have ---Greatness.

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.

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

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.

I'm a poet, and I like my lies the way my mother used to make them.

One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.

May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall!

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.

Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence.

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.