Anton LaVey
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Demographics
Gender Male
Birth Name Howard Stanton Levey
Birthplace Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Birth Date April 11, 1930
Ethnicity Jewish
Overview Ashkenazi
Nationality American
Career Satanist, author, musician
Color Season True Winter
Notes and Motifs
Founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of Satanism
NiFe I---
NiFe I---
LaVey: "It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful."
LaVey: "Love is one of the most intense feelings felt by man; another is hate. Forcing yourself to feel indiscriminate love is very unnatural. If you try to love everyone you only lessen your feelings for those who deserve your love. Repressed hatred can lead to many physical and emotional aliments. By learning to release your hatred towards those who deserve it, you cleanse yourself of these malignant emotions and need not take your pent-up hatred out on your loved ones."
LaVey: "Up is down, pleasure is pain, darkness is light, slavery is freedom, madness is sanity."
LaVey: "Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid."
LaVey: "The Atheist complains about the wind. The Christian prays for it to change. The Satanist adjusts his sails."
LaVey: "After an inferior man has been taught a doctrine of superiority he will remain as inferior as he was before his lesson. He will merely assume himself to be superior, and attempt to employ his recently-learned tactics against his own kind, whom he will then consider his inferiors. With each inferior man enjoying what he considers his unique role, the entire bunch will be reduced to a pack of strutting, foppish, self-centered monkeys gamboling about on an island of ignorance. There they will play their games under the supervision of their keeper, who was and always will be a superior man."
LaVey: "To be loved, feelings must be rationed. To love, the doors of hysteria, fantasy, and madness may be flung open."
LaVey: "I find greater companionship in inert figures, animals and Speechless artifacts, for I can enjoy their presence and there is no psychic drain."
LaVey: "The true test of anyone's worth as a living creature is how much he can utilize what he has."
LaVey: "There is nothing inherently sacred about moral codes. Like the wooden idols of long ago, they are the work of human hands, and what man has made, man can destroy!"
LaVey: "When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him."
LaVey: "I dont crave companionship. It stands in my way. I live for pleasure. There are few persons who can give me as much pleasure as those acts I perform myself. I would rather create pleasure according to my own whim than be subjected to the whims of others."
LaVey: "Every religion in the world that has destroyed people is based on love"
LaVey: "You cannot love everyone; it is ridiculous to think you can. If you love everyone and everything you lose your natural powers of selection and wind up being a pretty poor judge of character and quality. If anything is used too freely it loses its true meaning. Therefore, the Satanist believes you should love strongly and completely those who deserve your love, but never turn the other cheek to your enemy!"
LaVey: "Satanism represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!"
LaVey: "Don't let that little pyramid with the bright eye fool you. That's to draw your attention away from the real thing: the big trapezoid beneath it."
LaVey: "Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree."
LaVey: "Don't waste your time with people who will ultimately destroy you, but concentrate instead on those who will appreciate your responsibility to them, and, likewise, feel responsible to you."
LaVey: "If you're going to be a sinner, be the best sinner on the block."
LaVey: "The person who takes every opportunity to "pick on" others is often mistakenly called "sadistic". In reality, this person is a misdirected masochist who is working towards his own destruction. The reason a person viciously strikes out against you is because they are afraid of you or what you represent, or are resentful of your happiness. They are weak, insecure, and on extremely shaky ground when you throw your curse, and they make ideal human sacrifices."
LaVey: "Life is the great indulgence - death the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of life here and now!"
LaVey: "Satanism advocates practicing a modified form of the Golden Rule. Our interpretation of this rule is: "Do unto others as they do unto you"; because if you "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and they, in turn, treat you badly, it goes against human nature to continue to treat them with consideration. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but if your courtesy is not returned, they should be treated with the wrath they deserve."
LaVey: "Be as a lion in the path. Be dangerous even in defeat."
LaVey: "Religions are easy to invent. Most traditional religions have little or nothing to do with reality, are dependent on obfuscation, interpretation, guilt, and unreasoning faith."
LaVey: "Most of the interesting people I've ever met have been deviant in one form or another."
LaVey: "One of the keys to success is an unflinching belief that there are no rules. Anyone who's ever succeeded has gone on that premise; not buying established procedures, business or otherwise. The naysayers are inevitably left behind amid shouts of 'it cannot be done' and 'should not be done.'"
LaVey: "The only thing Christianity ever contributed to Satanism was the name"