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Wisdom of Albert Pike

  1. 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.
  2. We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.
  3. Will is the dynamic soul-force.
  4. 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 heart; the heart is the fire; the fire is the Elixir.
  5. The double law of attraction and radiation or of sympathy and antipathy, of fixedness and movement, which is the principle of Creation, and the perpetual cause of life.
  6. One man is equivalent to all Creation. One man is a World in miniature.
  7. Philosophy is a kind of journey, ever learning yet never arriving at the ideal perfection of truth.
  8. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the some creation; but every different are the aspects which it bears to them.
  9. To work with 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.
  10. The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body Quintessense, a combination of light and gold.
  11. 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 prerogative of the reason.
  12. 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.
  13. The sovereignty of one’s self over one’s self is called Liberty.
  14. Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.
  15. 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.
  16. 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 commence with error, imperfection and ignorance. We must past through the darkness, to reach the light.
  17. 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.
  18. 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 wind. Often they roar over his head, often they beat him back and battle him. Most men yield to the stress of the current. Only here and there the stout, heart and vigorous arms struggle on towards ultimate success.
  19. Man is thus both human and divine: and the apparent antagonisms in his Nature are a real equilibrium, if he wills it shall be so; from which results the Harmony, not only of Life and Action, but of Virtue and Perfection.
  20. What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.