Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. Profoundly inspirational Aleister Crowley quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
Famous Aleister Crowley Quotes
The key of joy is disobedience. Aleister Crowley
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? Aleister Crowley
It is necessary, in this world, to be made of harder stuff than one’s environment. Aleister Crowley
The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and willfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices. Aleister Crowley
Intolerance is evidence of impotence. Aleister Crowley
People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn’t, for the most part’ on the contrary, it’s a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom. Aleister Crowley
Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence. Aleister Crowley
It is a terrible error to let any natural impulse, physical or mental, stagnate. Crush it out, if you will, and be done with it; or fulfill it, and get it out of the system; but do not allow it to remain there and putrefy. The suppression of the normal sex instinct, for example, is responsible for a thousand ills. In Puritan countries one inevitably finds a morbid preoccupation with sex coupled with every form of perversion and degeneracy. Aleister Crowley
Every man and every woman is a star. Aleister Crowley
What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over. Aleister Crowley
The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing. Aleister Crowley
It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth. Aleister Crowley
I am the blue lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky. Aleister Crowley
Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion. Aleister Crowley
We must conquer life by living it to the full, and then we can go to meet death with a certain prestige. Aleister Crowley
The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript. Aleister Crowley
I’m a poet, and I like my lies the way my mother used to make them. Aleister Crowley
Since all things are God, in all things thou seest just so much of God as thy capacity affordeth thee. Aleister Crowley
The people who have really made history are the martyrs. Aleister Crowley
The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the most certain it is that I only assert a limitation. Aleister Crowley
A man’s friends are more capable of working him harm than strangers, and his greatest danger lies in his own habits. Aleister Crowley
Do not imagine that art or anything else is other than high magic! is a system of holy hieroglyphs. The artist, the initiate, thus frames his mysteries. The rest of the world scoff, or seek to understand, or pretend to understand; some few obtain the truth. Aleister Crowley
Sex is the sacred song of the soul; Sex is the sanctuary of Self. Aleister Crowley
A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world. Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people. Aleister Crowley
The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non ego or what not. Aleister Crowley
I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul Aleister Crowley
Light illuminates the path of humanity: it is our own fault if we go over the brink. Aleister Crowley
If you cut off a man’s head, he dies. Why? Because it kills him. That is really the whole answer. Aleister Crowley
Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains. Aleister Crowley
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt. Aleister Crowley
The technical developments of almost every form of wealth [e.g., oil, minerals] are the forebears of Big Business; and Big Business, directly or indirectly, is the immediate cause of War. Aleister Crowley
If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad. Aleister Crowley
The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misunderstandings! Aleister Crowley
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. Aleister Crowley
Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another. Aleister Crowley
The customer is usually wrong, but statistics indicate that it doesn’t pay to tell him so. Aleister Crowley
Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life. Aleister Crowley
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! Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people. 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. Aleister Crowley
The first condition of success in magic is purity of purpose. Aleister Crowley
In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. Aleister Crowley
As long as sexual relations are complicated by religious, social and financial considerations, so long will they cause all kinds of cowardly, dishonorable and disgusting behavior. Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people. Aleister Crowley
It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people’s business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path. Aleister Crowley
The people who have really made history are the martyrs. Aleister Crowley
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! Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
What is it in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? The effects of its abuse are totally distinct from those of other stimulants. Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them. Aleister Crowley
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 fulfill it according to the law of light. Aleister Crowley
What is the meaning of Initiation? It is the Path to the realization of yourSelf as the sole, the supreme, the absolute of all Truth, Beauty, Purity, Perfection! Aleister Crowley
Love is the only principle which makes life tolerable. Aleister Crowley
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fight drunk on bogey tales. Aleister Crowley
Intolerance is evidence of impotence. Aleister Crowley
I do not think we were afraid of death; life had become such an infinitely boring alternation between a period of stimulation which failed to stimulate and of depression which hardly even depressed. Aleister Crowley
Intolerance is evidence of impotence. Aleister Crowley
Indubitably, Magick 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. Aleister Crowley
The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people. Aleister Crowley
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 fulfill it according to the law of light. Aleister Crowley
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
The Holy Guardian Angel is the spiritual Sun of the Soul of the Adept. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
I have been accused of being a ‘black magician.’ No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it. Aleister Crowley
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
Your kiss is bitter with cocaine. Aleister Crowley
Light illuminates the path of humanity: it is our own fault if we go over the brink.
The man who denounces life merely defines himself as the man who is unequal to it. Aleister Crowley
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. Aleister Crowley
We must conquer life by living it to the full, and then we can go to meet death with a certain prestige. Aleister Crowley
Dreams are imperfections of sleep; even so is consciousness the imperfection of waking. Dreams are impurities in the circulation of the blood; even so it’s consciousness a disorder of life. Dreams are without proportion, without good sense, without truth; so also is consciousness. Awake from dream, the truth is known: awake from waking. The truth is: The Unknown Aleister Crowley
The average man cannot believe that an artist may be as serious and high minded an observer of life as the professed man of science. Aleister Crowley
