Manly Hall Quotes

Experiences are the chemicals of life with which the philosopher experiments

Man’s security comes from within himself.

Before our globe had become egg-shaped or round it was a long trail of cosmic dust or fire-mist, moving and writhing like a serpent. This, say the explanations, was the Spirit of God moving on the chaos until its breath had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its month–emblem of eternity in its spiritual and of our world in its physical sense.

In ancient times men fought with their right arms and defended with their left arms… …the right side of the body was considered masculine and the left side feminine.

If the infinite had not desired man to be wise, he would not have bestowed upon him the faculty of knowing.

To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.

This tree is indeed a Tree of Life, for without the higher and finer sentiments man does not life; he merely exists. If any branch of that tree does not bear fruit, the Master tells us that it shall be cut off and cast into the fire. It is the duty of all living things to produce some truly constructive labor as recognition of the divine life which is within them. God is most glorified when His children glorify His spirit within themselves.

Wisdom is a condition of consciousness rather than an attitude of mind. Wisdom is that state of being in which an individual finds himself when realization has tinctured and transmuted all attitudes and opinions. A wise man is one who has experienced wisdom, wisdom in this sense being a mystical experience.

Much has been said of the loneliness of wisdom, and how much the Truth seeker becomes a pilgrim wandering from star to star. To the ignorant, the wise man is lonely because he abides in distant heights of the mind. But the wise man himself does not feel lonely. Wisdom brings him nearer to life; closer to the heart of the world than the foolish man can ever be. Bookishness may lead to loneliness, and scholarship may end in a battle of beliefs, but the wise man gazing off into space sees not an emptiness, but a space full of life, truth, and law.

It is only a step from boredom to disillusionment, which leads naturally to self-pity, which in turn ends in chaos.

Symbolism is the language of the Mysteries. By symbols men have ever sought to communicate to each other those thoughts which transcend the limitations of language.

There is no place for little minds in a great work