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 (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 54 (1929, rev. 1970).)

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 64 (1929, rev. 1970). Referring to Freudian theories.)

The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 61 (1929, rev. 1970).)

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 (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 48 (1929, rev. 1970).)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. Ed. (1970). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, prelude (1929). The maxim is repeated throughout Crowley's works, as representing the key to his philosophy. It has a precedent of a sort in St. Augustine's "Love and do what you will." [Dilige et quod vis fac.]...)

There is only one really safe, mild, harmless beverage and you can drink as much of that as you like without running the slightest risk, and what you say when you want it is, "Gar?on! Un Pernod!"

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 63 (1929, rev. 1970). Advice to his disciple Victor Neuburg in Paris.)

Love stories are only fit for the solace of people in the insanity of puberty. No healthy adult human being can really care whether so-and-so does or does not succeed in satisfying his physiological uneasiness by the aid of some particular person or not.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 50 (1929, rev. 1970).)

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 (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 5 (1929, rev.1970). Of geometry lessons.)

It sometimes strikes me that the whole of science is a piece of impudence; that nature can afford to ignore our impertinent interference. If our monkey mischief should ever reach the point of blowing up the earth by decomposing an atom, and even annihilated the sun himself, I cannot really suppose that the universe would turn a hair.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 14 (1929, rev. 1970).)

Part of the public horror of sexual irregularity so-called is due to the fact that everyone knows himself essentially guilty.

(Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 50 (1929, rev. 1970).)