Albert Pike
Everything actual must also first have been possible, before having actual existence.Collection: Firsts
Let us drink together, fellows, as we did in days of yore. And still enjoy the golden hours that Fortune has in store; The absent friends remembered be, in all that’s sung or said, And Love immortal consecrate the memory of the dead.Collection: Memories
It is most true, that Truth is a Divine attribute and the foundation of every virtue. To be true, and to seek to find and learn the Truth, are the great objects of every good Mason.Collection: Foundation
Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself.Collection: Dark
We avoid sensuousness, only by resorting to simple negation. We come at last to define spirit by saying that it is not matter.Collection: Simple
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.Collection: Father
If the Soul sees, after death , what passes on this earth , and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery , and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten.Collection: Memories
The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded.Collection: Philosophy
Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.Collection: Teaching
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.Collection: Spiritual
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.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Wise
Hypocrisy is the homage that vice and wrong pay to virtue and justice .Collection: Justice
That which we say and do, if its effects last not beyond our lives, is unimportant.Collection: Lasts
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.Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Religious
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 .Collection: Teaching
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.Collection: Mysterious
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.Collection: Moving
Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection.Collection: Mistake
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 .Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Writing
Man's real genius and knowledge remains preserved in booksCollection: Real
We seem never to know what any thing means or is worth until we have lost it.Collection: Mean
Be prudent, diligent, temperate and discreet. Remember that every human being has a claim upon your kind offices.Collection: Kindness
That which we do for ourselves dies with us … that which we do for others lives forever.Collection: Forever
Virtue is but heroic bravery, to do the thing thought to be true, in spite of all enemies of flesh or spirit, in despite of all temptations or menaces.Collection: Bravery
Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.Collection: Liberty
Know thou the self (spirit) as riding in a chariot, The body as the chariot. Know thou the intellect as the chariot-driver, And the mind as the reins. The senses, they say, are the horses; The objects of sense, what they range over. The self combined with senses and mind Wise men call "the enjoyer.Collection: Wise
All religious expression is symbolism.Collection: Religious
There are greater and better things in us all, than the world takes account of, or than we take note of; if we would but find them out.Collection: World
The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.Collection: Men
Work only can keep even kings respectable.Collection: Kings
We do not see and estimate the relative importance of objects so easily and clearly from the level or the waving land as from the elevation of a lone peak, towering above the plain; for each looks through his own mist.Collection: Land
Justice is peculiarly indispensable to nations.Collection: Justice
The word well spoken, the deed fitly done, even by the feeblest or humblest, cannot help but have their effect. More or less, the effect is inevitable and eternal.Collection: Done
The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity.Collection: Rays
If the effort also is predestined, it is not the less our effort, made of our free will.Collection: Effort