22 Amazing Quotes from the Lost Keys of Freemasonry by Manly P. Hall.

Last Updated on September 14, 2022 by The Unbounded Thinker

There are many contradictory beliefs about Freemasons. Some people believe these individuals are satanic, while others claim that they have good intentions. As for me, I’m not sure about their intentions, but what I am sure of is that they have eye-opening secrets.

In his book, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Manly P. Hall discusses some of these secrets. He exposes the main virtues of Freemasonry and the things one must do to consider himself a Mason.

I noted down several quotes while reading this eye-opening book.

Here are some of them:

1. ‘Reality forever eludes us. Infinity mocks our puny efforts to imprison it in definition and dogma. Our most splendid realizations are only adumbrations of the Light. In his endeavors, man is but a mollusk seeking to encompass the ocean.’
2. ‘Man may not cease his struggle to find God. There is a yearning in his soul that will not let him rest, an urge that compels him to attempt the impossible, to attain the unattainable. He lifts feeble hands to grasp and despite a million years of failure and millenniums of disappointment, the soul of man springs heavenward with even greater avidity than when the race was young.’
3. ‘Wisdom drapes her truth with symbolism, and covers her insight with allegory.’
4. ‘Freemasonry, though not a religion, is essentially religious. Most of its legend and allegories are of a sacred nature; much of it is woven into the structure of Christianity.’
5. ‘Science and technology are two ends of a single truth, but the world will never receive the full benefit of their investigations until they have made peace with each other, and labor hand in hand for the accomplishment of the great work – the liberation of spirit and intelligence from the three-dimensional prison-house of ignorance, superstition, and fear.’
6. ‘We have no right to ask for wisdom. In whose name do we beg for understanding? By what authority do we demand happiness? None of these things is the birthright of any creature yet all may have them, if they will cultivate within themselves the thing that they desire.’
7. ‘The world is a school. We are here to learn, and our presence here proves our need of instruction. Every living creature here proves our need of instruction. Every living creature is struggling to break the strangling bonds of limitation – that pressing narrowness which inhabits vision and leaves the life without an ideal. Every soul is engaged in great work – the labor of personal liberation from the state of ignorance.’
8. ‘Life is the span of time appointed for accomplishment. Every fleeting moment is an opportunity, and those who are great are the ones who have recognized life as the opportunity for all things.’
9. ‘It is more than a faith, it is a path of certainty. It is more than a belief; it is a fact. Masonry is a university teaching the liberal arts and sciences of the soul to all who will attend to its words.’
10. ‘A Mason is a builder of the temple of character. He is the architect of a sublime mystery – the gleaming, glowing, temple of his own soul. He realizes that he bests serves God when he joins with the Great Architect in building more noble structures in the universe below.’
11. ‘In freemasonry is concealed the mystery of creation, the answer to the problem of existence, and the path the student must tread in order to join those who are really the living powers behind the thrones of modern national and international affairs.’
12. ‘When man’s thoughts rise upon the wings of aspiration, when he pushes back the darkness with the strength of reason and logic, then indeed the builder is liberated from his dungeon and the light pours in, bathing him with life and power.’
13. ‘The path of human life is governed as all things are by the laws of analogy, and as at birth we start our pilgrimage through youth, manhood, and old age, so the spiritual consciousness of man in his cosmic path of unfoldment passes from unconsciousness to perfect consciousness in the Grand Lodge of the universe.’
14. ‘Few realize that since the universe is made up of individuals in various stages of development, responsibility is consequently individual, and everything which man wishes to gain he must himself build and maintain.’
15. ‘God is glorifying himself through the individualized portions of himself, and is slowly teaching these individualized portions to understand and glorify the whole.’
16. ‘Incessant vigilance over thought, action, and desire is indispensable to those who wish to make progress in the unfolding of their own being.’
17. ‘It is worse by far to know and not to do than to never have known at all.’
18. ‘The Freemason believes in the Great Architect/God, the living keystone of creation’s plan, the master of all lodges, without whose spirit there is no work.’
19. ‘Those who allow appearance or worldly expressions to deter them from their self-appointed tasks are failures in Masonry, for Masonry is an abstract science of spiritual unfoldment. Material prosperity is not the measure of soul growth. The true Mason realizes that behind these diverse forms there is one connected Life Principle, the Spark of God in all living things.’
20.  ‘Man is god in the making, and as in the mystics myths of Egypt, on the potter’s wheel he is being molded.’
21. ‘What nobler thing can be accomplished than the illumination of ignorance.’
22. ‘The true Master Mason recognizes the value of seeking for truth wherever he can find it. It makes no difference if it be in the enemy’s camp; if it be truth, he will go there gladly to secure it.’