Crowley Quotes

“And gears," said Anathema. "My bike didn't have gears. I'm sure my bike didn't have gears."

Crowley leaned over to the angel. "Oh lord, heal this bike," he whispered sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, I just got carried away," hissed Aziraphale.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Some police forces would believe anything. Not the Metropolitan police, though. The Met was the hardest, most cynically pragmatic, most stubbornly down-to-earth police force in Britain. It would take a lot to faze a copper from the Met. It would take, for example, a huge, battered car that was nothing more nor less than a fireball, a blazing, roaring, twisted metal lemon from Hell, driven by a grinning lunatic in sunglasses, sitting amid the flames, trailing thick black smoke, coming straight at them through the lashing rain and wind at eighty miles an hour.
That would do it every time.”
― Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Remember that unbalanced force is evil; that unbalanced severity is but cruelty and oppression; but that also unbalanced mercy is but weakness which would allow and abet Evil. Act passionately; think rationally; be Thyself.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4

“Right! Let's get on with it! All right... you... Will... have trained as apprentice to Ranger Halt of Redmont Fief these last five twelvemonths and blah blah blah and so on and so on. You've shown the necessary level of proficiency in the use of the weapons a Ranger uses- the longbow, the saxe knife, the throwing knife."

He paused and glanced up Halt. "He has shown the proficiency, hasn't he? Of course he has," he went on, before Halt could answer. "Furthermore, you are a trusted officer in the service of the King and so on and so on and hi diddle diddle dee dee..." He glanced up again. "These forms really do carry on a bit, don't they? But I have to make a pretense of reading them. And so forth and so on and such like." He paused, nodded several times, then continued.

"So basically..." He flicked a few more pages, found the one he was after and then continued, "You are in all ways ready to assume the position and authority of a fully operational Ranger in the Kingdom of Araluen. Correct?"

He glanced up again, his eyebrows raised. Will realized he was waiting for an answer.

"Correct," he said hastily, then in case that wasn't enough, he added, "Yes. I mean... I do... I am. Yes."

"Well, good for you.”
― John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom

“Halt glared at his friend as the whistling continued.
'I had hoped that your new sense of responsibly would put an end to that painful shrieking noise you make between your lips' he said.
Crowley smiled. It was a beautiful day and he was feeling at peace with the world. And that meant he was more than ready to tease Halt 'It's a jaunty song'
'What's jaunty about it?' Halt asked, grim faced. Crowley made an uncertain gesture as he sought for an answer to that question.
'I suppose it's the subject matter' he said eventually. 'It's a very cheerful song. Would you like me to sing it for you?'
'N-' Halt began but he was too late, as Crowley began to sing. He had a pleasant tenor voice, in fact, and his rendering of the song was quite good. But to Halt it was as attractive as a rusty barn door squeaking.
'A blacksmith from Palladio, he met a lovely lady-o'
'Whoa! Whoa!' Halt said 'He met a lovely lady-o?' Halt repeated sarcastically 'What in the name of all that's holy is a lady-o?'
'It's a lady' Crowley told him patiently.
'Then why not sing 'he met a lovely lady'?' Halt wanted to know.
Crowley frowned as if the answer was blatantly obvious.
"Because he's from Palladio, as the song says. It's a city on the continent, in the southern part of Toscana.'
'And people there have lady-o's, instead of ladies?' Asked Halt
'No. They have ladies, like everyone else. But 'lady' doesn't rhyme with Palladio, does it? I could hardly sing, 'A blacksmith from Palladio, he met his lovely lady', could I?'
'It would make more sense if you did' Halt insisted
'But it wouldn't rhyme' Crowley told him.
'Would that be so bad?'
'Yes! A song has to rhyme or it isn't a proper song. It has to be lady-o. It's called poetic license.'
'It's poetic license to make up a word that doesn't exist and which, by the way, sound extremely silly?' Halt asked.
Crowley shook his head 'No. It's poetic license to make sure that the two lines rhyme with each other'
Halt thought for a few seconds, his eyes knitted close together. Then inspiration struck him.
'Well then couldn't you sing 'A blacksmith from Palladio, he met a lovely lady, so...'?'
'So what?' Crowley challenged
Halt made and uncertain gesture with his hands as he sought more inspiration. Then he replied. 'He met a lovely lady, so...he asked her for her hand and gave her a leg of lamb.'
'A leg of lamb? Why would she want a leg of lamb?' Crowley demanded
Halt shrugged 'Maybe she was hungry”
― John Flanagan, The Tournament at Gorlan

“To comprehend Crowley, one must comprehend what he meant by "Magick"—the "discredited" tradition he swore to "rehabilitate."

Magick, for Crowley, is a way of life that takes in every facet of life. The keys to attainment within the magical tradition lie in the proper training of the human psyche itself—more specifically, in the development of the powers of will and imagination. The training of the will—which Crowley so stressed, thus placing himself squarely within that tradition—is the focusing of one's energy, one's essential being. The imagination provides, as it were, the target for this focus, by its capacity to ardently envision—and hence bring into magical being—possibilities and states beyond those of consensual reality. The will and imagination must work synergistically. For the will, unilluminated by imagination, becomes a barren tool of earthly pursuits. And the imagination, ungoverned by a striving will, lapses into idle dreams and stupor.”
― Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley

“What bizarre things does not one find in a great city when one knows how to walk about and how to look! Life swarms with innocent monsters. Oh Lord my God, Thou Creator, Thou Master, Thou who hast made law and liberty, Thou the Sovereign who dost allow, Thou the Judge who dost pardon, Thou who art full of Motives and of Causes, Thou who hast (it may be) placed within my soul the love of horror in order to turn my hear to Thee, like the cure which follows the knife; Oh Lord, have pity, have pity upon the mad men and women that we are! Oh Creator, is it possible that monsters should exist in the eyes of Him alone who knoweth why they exist, how they have made themselves, and how they would have made themselves, and could not?”
― Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley

“You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?”
― Terry Pratchett

“The real inferiority of women to men is shown by their hate of paederasty, which they regard as unfair competition. Men on the other hand rather approve of Sapphism, as saving them trouble & expense.
—Aleister Crowley. 1929-03-09 diary entry.”
― Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley

“I saw at once the way to appeal to him.. 'Well, of course you know.' I said, 'in really smart circles one has to offer heroin and cocaine to people. It's only a passing fashion, of course, but while it's on, one's really out of it if one doesn't do the right thing.”
― Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend

“The attitude that psychologists call inflation and the traditional lore of Cabalistic magic, borrowing a term from religion, calls spiritual pride is one of the most serious dangers of this work.

Those who enter the path of magic with too great an appetite for flattery or too strong a need for ego reinforcement will very likely find these things, but they are also rather too likely to find fanaticism, megalomania and mental breakdown along the same route. The thing has happened far too often in the history of magic in the West.”
― John Michael Greer, Paths of Wisdom

“Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice

“A los que Crowley no podía soportar era a ésos que se llamaban a sí mismos satánicos. No sólo por lo que hacían, sino por la manía que tenían de achacárselo todo al Infierno. Se les ocurría alguna idea vomitiva que no se le pasaría a un demonio por la cabeza ni en un millón de años, alguna atrocidad oscura y descerebrada que sólo una mente humana hecha y derecha podría concebir, y luego gritaban: «¡El Diablo me empujó a hacerlo!», y se quedaban con los jueces cuando lo cierto es que el Diablo nunca empujaba a nadie a nada. No le hacía falta. Y eso a los humanos les costaba entenderlo. El Infierno no era ningún gran depósito de mal, no más de lo que, según Crowley, el Cielo era una fuente de bien; eran sólo bandos en una gran partida cósmica de ajedrez. Y era en la mente humana donde se hallaba la verdadera fuente de la bondad verdadera y de la verdadera maldad de infarto.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“When Celia cums, 'tis earthquake hour
The bed vibrates like kettledrums
It is a grand display of power
when Celia cums.

An up exhales a greasy stench
for which you curse the careless wench;
so things which must not be exprest,
when plumpt into the reeking chest,
send up an excremental smell
to taint the parts from whence they fell
the petticoats and gown perfume
which waft a stink around every room
thus finishing his grand survey
disgusted Strephon stole away
repeating his amorous fits

Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!”
― Aleister Crowley

“It is true that some of the so-called
secrets are significant, but as a rule they
are so only to those who already
know what the secret is.”
― Aleister Crowley

“Theosophists refer to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as the Silent Watcher (the reader might here recall the author's suggestion to make self-observation or self-watching a major magickal goal). Another term for It is the Great Master. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn call It the Genius. Gnostics say the Logos. Zoroaster talks about united all these symbols into the form of a Lion (see Austin Osman Spare's work). Anna Kingsford calls It Adonai (Clothed with the Sun). Buddhists call It Adi-Buddha. The Bhagavad-gītā calls It Vishnu (Krishna is an Avatar of Vishnu). The Yi King calls him The Great Person. The Kabbalah calls It Jechidah.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“the definition of the Great Work itself, the aim of the Yogi [is] to consummate the marriage of all that he is with all that he is not, and ultimately to realise, insofar as the marriage is consummated, that what he is and what he is not are identical”
― Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga

“We’ve all had those nights where drunken sex with a witch in a blood pentagram under a full moon on the roof of your favourite Johannesburg nightclub summons a hard-drinking demon who changes the fate of the human race forever.
Right?
No?
Just me, then?”
― John West, Burning Roses - A decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick

“As above; so below. As the Sun represents the most exalted planetary body in our solar system, the Orgasm represents the most exalted human experience.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“Sex magick existed before Crowley. It is quite ancient, having been observed by Gnostic and Tantric practitioners, and later by the pagan (indigenous) pre-Christian peoples of Europe.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“Halt glanced down at his friend's belt quiver. Like his own, it was empty.
"Lost your arrows somewhere, did you?" he said, and the two of them laughed.”
― John Flanagan, The Battle of Hackham Heath

“The things that worry the pedestrian worry us not at all; but to control a new element your Yama must be that biological principle of adaptation to the new conditions, adjustment of the faculties to those conditions, and
consequent success in those conditions”
― Aleister Crowley

“We have seen that it is presumptuous and impractical to lay down definite rules as to what we are to do. What does concern us is so to arrange matters that we are free to do anything that may become necessary or expedient, allowing for that development of supernormal powers which enables us to carry out our plans as they form in the mutable bioscope of events.”
― Aleister Crowley

“The initiation undergone by St. John of the Cross was a very high one, and one which Crowley fancied himself to have taken. He makes much of ‘The Wastelands’ and ‘Babe of the Abyss’ and one of his groups was called the Order of the Silver Star after the title of the Tarot Trump of this Path.
But initiation is not merely a question of knowing the externals of symbolism, it is a state of being, and anyone can judge for themselves the extent of Crowley’s real condition by comparing his writings with those of St. John of the Cross, who achieved without any advanced knowledge of symbols, secret or otherwise, but purely by faith and spiritual will. An even more revealing and damning analysis would be to compare their lives. It seems necessary to emphasise this, not so much for the doubtful pleasure of kicking a man who is already down, but in order to act as a warning to the many who tend to injure themselves by trying to follow the Crowley system without sufficient knowledge of its pitfalls — some of which, sad to say, seem deliberately placed, either through malice or a misplaced sense of humour.”
― Gareth Knight

“We need to be able to hold opposites, and this embrace is a profound act. Ultimately, we want to achieve an integral (intact and undivided) self. Coherence and Self-Realization are the means through which we attain our Magickal Aim.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“They just said, "Get up there and make some trouble," said the serpent, whose name was Crawly, although he was thinking of changing it now. Crawly, he'd decided was not ”
― Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

“Crowley knew Jnana and most of his followers perhaps did not correctly understand his Tantra. The idea of ​​θέλημα (Will) is not the will of the εγώ (Ego), but rather the "θέλημα του κόσμου" (will of the world). This is the potential key capable of evoking Shakti.”
― Shva Hárr

“Sorry about falling asleep again. I understand that having your main character fall asleep every page break is a big no-no in the world of fiction, but oh well. I’m also not allowed to look in a mirror. And I’m not allowed to digress. But here we are. I like books that pass out, peer into forbidden mirrors, and have jeremiads. And I bet if you’re an Atleby fan, you’re into dreams, mirrors, and asides too.”
― Chase Griffin

“But I also was drawn to them because of the rumors. You see there were rumors about Eliza and his band mates and his friends. One rumor was that Eliza and his bandmates and his friends were covert agents, perception managers working for the secret world government corporate nexus. The band was said to be made of boy geniuses who had been recruited by the nexus at a very young age. Another rumor was that Eliza and his band mates and his friends were no longer active agents. The sub rumors of this rumor stated that Eliza and his bandmates and his friends were either retired, decamped, or defected. My favorite rumor was the one that stated that they were still active but peepers were supposed to believe that they were either retired, decamped, or defected.”
― Chase Griffin

“I'm not sure what cyberpunk catechism means. It's making me think of the late-cap mediums being embedded with hermeneutics-of-suspicion trigger mechanisms. Is that what she means? Is she randomly talking about how the late-cap mediums made one want to search until they confirmed some sort of bias. Do you catch my westerlies? I don't know if I am expressing this very well. I mean that the mediums no longer informed or entertained like the mediums of yore. The mediums of late-cap only appeared to inform or entertain. Underneath the surface, one found that the mediums were built to make one say, “Aha! So that is what other people are like!”
― Chase Griffin