Every incarnation that we remember must increase our comprehension of ourselves as who we are.

Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it.

Religion itself becomes offensively monotonous. On every point of vantage are pagodas -- stupid stalagmites of stagnant piety.

I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. 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.

Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.

The greatest, like Rembrandt, paint a gallant, a hag, and a carcass with equal passion and rapture; they love the truth as it is. They do not admit that anything can be ugly or evil; its existence justifies itself. This is because they know themselves to be part of an harmonious unity; to disdain any item of it would be to blaspheme the whole. The Thelemite is able to revel in any experience soever; in each he recognizes the tokens of ultimate Truth. It is surely obvious, even intellectually, that all phenomena are interdependent, and therefore involve each other.

Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.