The keystone of this arch of misery
Is set by the unfaltering hands
Of Fate. How desperate the anarchy
Wrought in one hour!
The fickle sands
Run through the glass, and all the light is gone.

Aleister Crowley, The Mother’s Tragedy

Hermetic quote Crowley The Mother's Tragedy keystone arch misery set by unfaltering hands fate desperate anarchy wrought one hour fickle sands glass light gone

Consider also:

  1. “O thou, of Angels fairest and most wise, God by Fate’s treachery shorn of liturgies! O Satan, have pity of my long misery!”
  2. “It is the darkest hour in all the evolution of a man, this realisation that the Self that he has striven to perfect and work for is no more than a delusion;-but it is also the darkest hour which goes before the dawn;-for soon that darkness passes, giving way to the light of a deeper and surer Wisdom”
  3. “That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”