H. P. Blavatsky Quotes & Sayings

Knowledge increases in proportion to its use; that is, the more we teach the more we learn. — H. P. Blavatsky

The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma of the church. What is the use in a Pope if there is no Devil ? — H. P. Blavatsky

But - drive out prejudice with a pitch-fork it will ever return. — H. P. Blavatsky

As no cause remains without its due effect from greatest to least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your hand, and as like produces like, Karma is that unseen and unknown law which adjusts wisely, intelligently, and equitably each effect to its cause, tracing the latter back to its producer. — H. P. Blavatsky

The essence of Theosophy is the perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or animal passions in him. Kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to oneself, are its chief features. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill; and the converse of this is true also - he who preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy. — H. P. Blavatsky

The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? — H. P. Blavatsky

The myths," says Horace in his Ars Poetica, "have been invented by wise men to strengthen the laws and teach moral truths." While Horace endeavored to make clear the very spirit and essence of the ancient myths, Euhemerus pretended, on the contrary, that "myths were the legendary history of kings and heroes, transformed into gods by the admiration of the nations." It is the latter method which was inferentially followed by Christians when they agreed upon the acceptation of euhemerized patriarchs, and mistook them for men who had really lived. — H. P. Blavatsky

And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the 'Lord of Phosphorus,' and Lucifer, or 'Light-Bearer,' is in us: it is our Mind — H. P. Blavatsky

The discoveries of modern science do not disagree with the oldest traditions which claim an incredible antiquity for our race. — H. P. Blavatsky

Nothing of that which is conducive to help man, collectively or individually, to live not "happily" but less unhappily in this world, ought to be indifferent to the Theosophist-Occultist. It is no concern of his whether his help benefits a man in his worldly or spiritual progress; his first duty is to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to philosophize. — H. P. Blavatsky

Strength your Soul against the stalk of the Ego, make it worth of the name of Diamond Soul. — H. P. Blavatsky

People keep repeating that the main things are love and compassion. Certainly love and compassion are the main things, but it takes knowledge to make love and compassion fruitful ... It takes just a second to say 'love'. But to acquire knowledge for the well-being and blessing of humanity requires an eternity. — H. P. Blavatsky

I speak "with absolute certainty" only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any "authority" let alone "divine revelation"! — H. P. Blavatsky

Theosophy, on earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and each religion only one of the seven colours. — H. P. Blavatsky

Matter is spirit at its lowest level. Spirit is matter at its highest level. — H. P. Blavatsky

Dogma? Faith? These are the right and left pillars of every soul-crushing theology. Theosophists have no dogmas, exact no blind faith. — H. P. Blavatsky

The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. — H. P. Blavatsky

From Architecture down to the Zodiac, every science worthy of the name was imported by the Greeks — H. P. Blavatsky

Who is the great man? He who is strongest in patience. He who patiently endures injury, and maintains a blameless life
he is a man indeed! — H. P. Blavatsky

Theosophy blesses the world; Theology is its curse. — H. P. Blavatsky

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time. — H. P. Blavatsky

The wheel of the Good Law moves swiftly on. It grinds by night and day. The worthless husks it drives from out the golden grain, the refuse from the flour. The hand of fate guides the wheel; the revolutions mark the beatings of the heart of manifestation. — H. P. Blavatsky

We must prepare and study truth under every aspect, endeavoring to ignore nothing, if we do not wish to fall into the abyss of the unknown when the hour shall strike. — H. P. Blavatsky

We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways being so intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. — H. P. Blavatsky

The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made. — H. P. Blavatsky

How long shall we Spiritualists be turned over like so many scapegoats to the unbelievers, by cheating mediums and speculating prophets? — H. P. Blavatsky

If thou would'st have that stream of hard-earn'd knowledge, of Wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet running waters, thou should'st not leave it to become a stagnant pond. — H. P. Blavatsky

The appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of the" Great Breath," which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute - Abstract Space and Duration being the other two. — H. P. Blavatsky

Every one of the numberless religions and religious sects views the Deity after its own fashion; and, fathering on the unknown its own speculations, it enforces these purely human outgrowths of overheated imagination on the ignorant masses, and calls them "revelation." As the dogmas of every religion and sect often differ radically, they cannot be true. And if untrue, what are they? — H. P. Blavatsky

The exercise of magical power is the exercise of natural powers, but superior to the ordinary functions of Nature. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant people. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world. Spiritualism in the hands of an adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe, without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature. — H. P. Blavatsky

Spiritualism is but a baby now, an unwelcome stranger, whom public opinion, like an unnatural foster mother, tries to crush out of existence. — H. P. Blavatsky

We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox, wherein, like dry leaves caught in a whirlpool, some of us are tossed helpless ... ever struggling between our honest convictions and fear of that cruelest of tyrants
PUBLIC OPINION. — H. P. Blavatsky

I have pledged my word to help people on to truth while living and - will keep my word. Let them abuse and revile me. Let some call me a medium, and a Spiritualist, and others an imposter. The day will come when posterity will learn to know me better. — H. P. Blavatsky

Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra - the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities ... — H. P. Blavatsky

All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having; their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known. — H. P. Blavatsky

But, if the knowledge of the occult powers of nature opens the spiritual sight of man, enlarges his intellectual faculties, and leads him unerringly to a profounder veneration for the Creator, on the other hand ignorance, dogmatic narrow-mindedness, and a childish fear of looking to the bottom of things, invariably leads to fetish-worship and superstition. — H. P. Blavatsky

Lucifer represents.. Life.. Thought.. Progress.. Civilization.. Liberty.. Independence.. Lucifer is the Logos.. the Serpent, the Savior. — H. P. Blavatsky

Dogmas are the toys that amuse and can satisfy but unreasoning children. They are the offspring of human speculation and prejudiced fancy. — H. P. Blavatsky

Prepare, and be forewarned in time. If thou hast tried and failed, O dauntless fighter, yet lose not courage: fight on, and to the charge return again and yet again ...
Remember, thou that fightest for man's liberation, each failure is success, and each sincere attempt wins its rewards in time. — H. P. Blavatsky

Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep." — H. P. Blavatsky

The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. — H. P. Blavatsky

Hast thou attuned thyself to the suffering of humanity, O candidate for light? — H. P. Blavatsky

Endurance is the free companion of Sorrow, and Patience her master. — H. P. Blavatsky

Man is spiritual being
a soul, in other words
and that this soul takes on different bodies from life to life on earth to order at last to arrive at such perfect knowledge, through repeated experience, as to enable one to assume a body fit to be the dwelling-place of a Mahatma or perfected soul. Then, they say, that particular soul becomes a spiritual helper to mankind. — H. P. Blavatsky

Be humble, if thou would'st attain to wisdom. Be humbler still, when wisdom thou hast mastered. — H. P. Blavatsky

To act and act wisely when the time for action comes, to wait and wait patiently when it is time for repose, put man in accord with the rising and falling tides (of affairs). So that with nature and law at his back, and truth and beneficence as his beacon light, he may accomplish wonders. Ignorance of this law results in periods of unreasoning enthusiasm on the one hand, and depression on the other. Man thus becomes the victim of the tides when he should be their Master. — H. P. Blavatsky

Ridicule is the deadliest weapon of the age ... — H. P. Blavatsky

The mind is the slayer of the real, let the disciples slay the slayer. — H. P. Blavatsky

The man might have become a Power, but he preferred to remain an Ass. — H. P. Blavatsky

When science shall have effectually demonstrated to us the origin of matter, and proved the fallacy of the occultists and old philosophers who held (as their descendants now hold) that matter is but one of the correlations of spirit, then will the world of skeptics have a right to reject the old Wisdom, or throw the charge of obscenity in the teeth of the old religions. — H. P. Blavatsky

A solitary ascetic is a symbol of the most cowardly egotism; a hermit who flees from his brothers instead of helping them to carry the burden of life, to work for others, and to put their shoulders to the wheel of social life, is a coward who hides himself when the battle is on, and goes to sleep drunk on an opiate. — H. P. Blavatsky

So little have thee first Christians (who despoiled the Jews of their Bible) understood the first four chapters of Genesis in their esoteric meaning, that they never perceived that not only was no sin intended in this disobedience, but that actually the 'Serpent' was 'the Lord God' himself, who, as the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind to become creators in their turn. — H. P. Blavatsky

Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators ... she will lay bare before thy gaze the treasures hidden in the depths of her pure virgin bosom. — H. P. Blavatsky

This Law
whether Conscious or Unconscious
predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for it is ETERNITY itself; and as such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity, it cannot be said to act, for it is ACTION itself ... Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position. — H. P. Blavatsky

It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God. — H. P. Blavatsky

True science has no belief," says Dr. Fenwick, in Bulwer-Lytton 's Strange Story; "true science knows but three states of mind: denial, conviction, and the vast interval between the two, which is not belief, but the suspension of judgment." Such, perhaps, was true science in Dr. Fenwick's days. But the true science of our modern times proceeds otherwise; it either denies point-blank, without any preliminary investigation, or sits in the interim, between denial and conviction, and, dictionary in hand, invents new Graeco-Latin appellations for non-existing kinds of hysteria! — H. P. Blavatsky

Is the scraping off of a barnacle the destruction of a ship? — H. P. Blavatsky

There is no [ ... ] higher than the truth. — H. P. Blavatsky

Patience leads to power; but eagerness in greed leads to loss. — H. P. Blavatsky

Never allow any unnecessary or vain thought to occupy your mind. This is more easily said than done. You cannot make your mind a blank all at once. So in the beginning try to prevent evil or idle thoughts by occupying your mind with the analysis of your own faults, or the contemplation of the Perfect Ones. — H. P. Blavatsky

The idea of passing one's whole life in moral idleness, and having one's hardest work and duty done by another-whether God or man-is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity. — H. P. Blavatsky

Civilization may progress, human nature will remain the same throughout all ages. — H. P. Blavatsky