Quote

As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow.

Aleister Crowley

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Aleister Crowley
Age: 72 †
Born: 1875
Born: October 12
Died: 1947
Died: December 1
Artist
Astrologer
Autobiographer
Chess Composer
Chess Player
Mountaineer
Novelist
Organizational Founder
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Leamington
Warwickshire
Men
Numbers
Bounds
Committees
Reinforced
Virtue
Clubs
Sink
Bestow
Worst
Individuals
Scholar
Vanish
Individual
Somehow
Virtues
Scholars
Science
Confidence
Club
Composing
Power
Soon
Bound
Committee
Together
Level
Pops
Collect
Self
Levels
Vices
Jury

More quotes by Aleister Crowley

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Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.
Aleister Crowley
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To use legal or financial constraint to compel either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible, unnatural and absurd.
Aleister Crowley
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Toronto as a city carries out the idea of Canada as a country. It is a calculated crime against the aspirations of the soul and the affection of the heart.
Aleister Crowley
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Black magic is not a myth. It is a totally unscientific and emotional form of magic, but it does get results — of an extremely temporary nature.
Aleister Crowley
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Aleister Crowley
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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
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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
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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.
Aleister Crowley
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The sot drinks, and is drunken: the coward drinks not, and shivers: the wise man, brave and free, drinks, and gives glory to the Most High God.
Aleister Crowley
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Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of sub-contraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding.
Aleister Crowley
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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
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The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.
Aleister Crowley
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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
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The intention of this Book of The Law is perfectly simple. Whatever your sexual predilections may be, you are free, by the Law of Thelema, to the the star you are, to go your own way rejoicing.
Aleister Crowley
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Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it.
Aleister Crowley
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To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind or, if not, should never be published at all.
Aleister Crowley
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Repeal all laws which assume that mankind is a herd of cattle
Aleister Crowley
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I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.
Aleister Crowley
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When you have proved that God is merely a name for the sex instinct, it appears to me not far to the perception that the sex instinct is God.
Aleister Crowley
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The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.
Aleister Crowley