Top 92 Quotes & Sayings by Albert Pike

Will is the dynamic soul-force.

The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.

A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.

The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold.

Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.

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.

A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.

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.

War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

To work with the hands or brain, according to our requirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title.

The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty.

Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world, have been achieved by poor men; poor scholars, poor professional men, poor artisans and artists, poor philosophers, poets, and men of genius.

We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.

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

Philosophy is a kind of journey, ever learning yet never arriving at the ideal perfection of truth.

Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection.

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.

A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts of others.

Man's real genius and knowledge remains preserved in books

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.

The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm.

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.

We live our little life; but Heaven is above us and all around and close to us; and Eternity is before us and behind us; and suns and stars are silent witnesses and watchers over us. We are enfolded by Infinity.

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 spoken discourse may roll on strongly as the great tidal wave; but, like the wave, it dies at last feebly on the sands. It is heard by few, remembered by still fewer, and fades away, like an echo in the mountains, leaving no token of power. It is the written human speech, that gave power and permanence to human thought.

I took my obligations from white men, not from negroes. When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave masonry, I shall leave it

That which we do for ourselves dies with us … that which we do for others lives forever.

Man is encompassed with a dome of incomprehensible wonders. In him and about him is that which should fill his life with majesty and sacredness. Something of sublimity and sanctity has thus flashed down from heaven into the heart of every one that lives.

A dim consciousness of infinite mystery and grandeur lies beneath all the commonplace of life . There is an awfulness and a majesty around us, in all our little worldliness .

Nothing excites men's curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know; and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires. Of this the Legislators and Hierophants took advantage, to attract the people to their sanctuaries, and to induce them to seek to obtain lessons from which they would perhaps have turned away with indifference if they had been pressed upon them.

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.

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

Strange and mysterious name to give to the spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish souls? Doubt it not!

The Blue Degrees are but the outer court...of the temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretation. It is not intended that he shall understand them, but it is intended that he shall imagine that he understands them...The true explanation is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry (those of the 32nd and 33rd degrees)

We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.

To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General (33rd Degree Masons), we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees: 'The Masonic religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine.'

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.

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

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 .

Toleration, holding that every other man has the same right to his opinion and faith that we have to ours; and liberality, holding that as no human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that he is surely in possession of it, so everyone should feel that it is quite possible that another equally honest and sincere with himself, and yet holding the contrary opinion, may himself be in possession of the truth.

The Secret of the Occult Sciences is that of Nature itself, the Secret of the generation of the Angels and Worlds, that of the Omnipotence of God .

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.

The sources of our knowledge of the kabalistic doctrines are the books of Yetzirah and Zohar, the former drawn up in the second century, and the latter a little later; but they contain materials much older than themselves...In them, as in the teachings of Zoroaster, everything that exists emanates from a source of infinite Light.

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.

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.

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

All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid.

That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.

We are all naturally seekers of wonders. We travel far to see the majesty of old ruins, the venerable forms of the hoary mountains, great waterfalls, and galleries of art. And yet the world's wonder is all around us; the wonder of setting suns, and evening stars, of the magic spring-time, the blossoming of the trees, the strange transformations of the moth...

Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah.

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.

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

Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries

Our adversaries, numerous and formidable, will say, and will have the right to say, that our Principe CrÇateur is identical with the Principe GÇnÇrateur of the Indians and Egyptians, and may fitly be symbolized as it was symbolized anciently, by the linage...To accept this in lieu of a personal God is to abandon Christianity and worship of Jehovah and return to wallow in the styles of Paganism.

To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those that are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man.

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.

Fictions are necessary for the people, and the Truth becomes deadly to those who are not strong enough to contemplate it in all its brilliance. In fact, what can there be in common between the vile multitude and sublime wisdom? The Truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason.

Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth.

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.