Albert Pike Quotes - Page 2

For it is true now, as it always was and always will be, that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and to be magnanimous and brave; and to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave.

That which we say and do, if its effects last not beyond our lives, is unimportant.

Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man's onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.

Hypocrisy is the homage that vice and wrong pay to virtue and justice .

Man's real genius and knowledge remains preserved in books

What is the purpose for which Masonry exists? Its ultimate purpose is the perfection of humanity. Mankind it self is still in a period of youth. We are only now beginning to acquire a consciousness of the social aim of civilization, which is man's perfection. Such perfection can never end with physical perfection, which is only the means to the end or spiritual perfection.

True thoughts have duration in themselves. If the thoughts endure, the seed is enduring; if the seed endures, the energy endures; if the energy endures, then will the spirit endure. The spirit is thought; thought is the heart; the heart is the fire; the fire is the Elixir.

The Word of God is the universal and invisible Light, cognizable by the senses, that emits its blaze in the Sun, Moon, Planets, and other Stars.

He who endeavors to serve, to benefit, and improve the world, is like a swimmer, who struggles against a rapid current, in a river lashed into angry waves by the winds. Often they roar over his head, often they beat him back and baffle him. Most men yield to the stress of the current... Only here and there the stout, strong heart and vigorous arms struggle on toward ultimate success.

Will is the dynamic soul-force.

The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine.

The Universe should be deemed an immense Being, always living, always moved and always moving in an eternal activity inherent in itself, and which, subordinate to no foreign cause, is communicated to all its parts, connects them together, and makes the world of things a complete and perfect whole.

The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded.

We Masons are among the fortunate ones who are taught to meet together with others opposing convictions or competitive ideas and yet respect each other as Brothers.

We seem never to know what any thing means or is worth until we have lost it.

Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.

Before God manifested Himself, when all things were still hidden in Him... He began by forming an imperceptible point; that was His own thought. With this thought He then began to construct a mysterious and holy form... the Universe.

Magic is that which it is; it is by itself, like the mathematics; for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and its laws . Magic is the science of the Ancient Magi: and the Christian religion, which has imposed silence on the lying oracles, and put an end to the prestiges of the false Gods , itself reveres those Magi who came from the East, guided by a Star , to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle.

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Be prudent, diligent, temperate and discreet. Remember that every human being has a claim upon your kind offices.

One man is equivalent to all Creation. One man is a World in miniature.

If, anywhere, brethren of a particular religious belief have been excluded from this Degree [18° Knight Rose Croix], it merely shows how gravely the purposes and plan of Masonry may be misunderstood. For whenever the door of any Degree is closed against him who believes in one God and the soul's immortality, on account of the other tenets of his faith, that Degree is Masonry no longer.

Death is the inseparable antecedent of life; the seed dies in order to produce the plant, and earth itself is rent asunder and dies at the birth of Dionusos. Hence the significancy of the phallus, or of its inoffensive substitute, the obelisk, rising as an emblem of resurrection by the tomb of buried Deity at Lerna or at Sais.

Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other.

Justice is peculiarly indispensable to nations . The unjust State is doomed of God to calamity and ruin. This is the teaching of the Eternal Wisdom and of history .