Edward Alexander Crowley, who came to be more popularly known as Aleister Crowlay, was a magician, occultist, painter, writer, active mountaineer and religious ideologue from England, who courted a lot of controversy during his lifetime but is still considered among the most famous Britons. Crowley was born in 1875 in a wealthy family and developed an interest in writing poetry and climbing mountains during his time at the prestigious University of Cambridge. He also learned ceremonial magic from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and then went to India in order to learn more about Hinduism and Buddhism. Crowley wrote a considerable number of books on occult practices and in addition to that, he had also turned over a large number of novels and poetry collections during his career. However, his most important contribution as an occultists and religious ideologue was the establishment of the religion Thelema. Crowley’s fiercely libertine activities made him a controversial figure and his love life, drug usage and views attracted the wrath of British society. Some people even believe that he was actually a member of the British intelligence agency and even Crowley had himself claimed that once. There is no doubt that Crowley is one of the most fascinating characters from history and here are some of his most famous quotes.
One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.
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!
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.
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.
I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff.
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.
Aleister Crowley
The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.
He shall fall down into a pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of reason.
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, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics.
Aleister Crowley
...in the absence of will power, the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless.
A red rose absorbs all colors but red; red is therefore the one color that it is not.
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 fulfil it according to the law of light.
The first condition of success in magick is purity of purpose.
Aleister Crowley
Chaos is Peace… Blackness, blackness intolerable, before the beginning of the light. This is the first verse of Genesis. Holy art thou, Chaos, Chaos, Eternity, all contradictions in terms!
The nails from a suicide's coffin, and the skull of the parricide, were of course no trouble; for Vesquit never traveled without these household requisites.
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.
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.
We [of Thelema] are whole-hearted extroverts; the penalty of restricting oneself is anything from neurosis to down right lunacy; in particular, melancholia.
Aleister Crowley
Stab your demoniac smile to my brain,
Soak me in cognac, love, and cocaine
She it is, she, that found me
In the morphia honeymoon;
With silk and steel she bound me
In her poisonous milk she drowned me,
Even now her arms surround me
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.
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.
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.
Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license.
Aleister Crowley
Must not understanding lie open unto wisdom as the pyramids lie open to the stars? (6:2)
Aleister Crowley
All this is true and false; and it is true and false to say that it is true and false.
Aleister Crowley
Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried, "our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance.
In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep ;
But in the end we lift the plumèd casque
Of the dead warrior ;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling whore.
Aleister Crowley
For when all is equilibrated, when all is beheld from without all, there is joy, joy, joy that is but one facet of a diamond, every other facet whereof is more joyful than joy itself.
Aleister Crowley
The man of earth is the adherent. The lover giveth his life unto the work among men. The hermit goeth solitary, and giveth only of his light unto men.
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