“My general plan is good, though in the detail there may be faults.”

The public is accustomed to it, expects little from it and therefore takes little notice of it.

Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.The hankering of the mind is irresistible.

Every man is entitled therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols and a system of the doctrine that he can render palatable.

Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

We may turn the public mind which way we will.

For they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration.

Those who possess this knowledge are indeed Illuminati.

Give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves;

It is necessary to gain the common people to our order. The best means to that end is influence in the schools.

Illuminate the opposition.

The great strength of our Order lies in its concealment.

I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head.

The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch

Our secret association works in a way that nothing can withstand, and man shall soon be free and happy.

If a writer publishes any thing that attracts notice, and is in itself just, but does not accord with our plan

We must win the common people in every corner.

Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.

What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?

I read everything I could find: books and online. Sometimes bigger revelations came to me through finer details or something that you wouldn’t pick up just by surface reading.

It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.

Once you get the right image the details aren’t that important.

Reveal every detail of how you feel to them with eyes wide open.

Every shrink knows that it’s not the event itself but how you respond to it that tells the story. Take ten assorted individuals, expose them all to the same life trial, and they will each suffuse it with exquisite personal detail and meaning.

Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.