Quote

The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.

Aleister Crowley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Attainable
Ideal
Ideals
Eternal
Mankind
Mistake

More quotes by Aleister Crowley

Image
There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son.
Aleister Crowley
Image
How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle! Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed to any other qualities than those of brutes.
Aleister Crowley
Image
I was asked to memorise what I did not understand and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Here again, there is no tabulation for us it is left to sacrifice literary charm, and even some accuracy, in order to bring out the one great point. The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Crime, folly, sickness and all phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear aversion or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them.
Aleister Crowley
Image
We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed.
Aleister Crowley
Image
I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul
Aleister Crowley
Image
Their false compassion is called compassion and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell.
Aleister Crowley
Image
I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.
Aleister Crowley
Image
The average man cannot believe that an artist may be as serious and highminded an observer of life as the professed man of science.
Aleister Crowley
Image
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
Image
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Adaptation to one's environment makes for a sort of survival but after all, the supreme victory is only won by those who prove themselves of so much hardier stuff than the rest that no power on earth is able to destroy them. The people who have really made history are the martyrs.
Aleister Crowley
Image
The 'lords of the earth' are those who are doing their Will. It does not necessarily mean people with coronets and automobiles there are plenty of such people who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole test of one's lordship is to know what one's true Will is, and to do it.
Aleister Crowley
Image
The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
Aleister Crowley
Image
I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.
Aleister Crowley
Image
To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind or, if not, should never be published at all.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Those magicians who object to the use of blood, have endeavored to replace it with incense. But, the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious. And for nearly all purposes, human sacrifice is the best.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Love is the only principle which makes life tolerable.
Aleister Crowley
Image
Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out! The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.
Aleister Crowley