
"Although innumerable beings have been led to Nirvana no being has been led to Nirvana", §5, p. 85
Knots (1970)
"The Dunwich Horror " - Written Summer 1928; first published in Weird Tales, 13, No. 4, (April 1929)<!-- p. 481-508 -->
The Thing on the Doorstep (1937), first published in Weird Tales
Fiction
Context: Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.
"Although innumerable beings have been led to Nirvana no being has been led to Nirvana", §5, p. 85
Knots (1970)
Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)
Context: Empty winds howled down out of the tundras of his soul. This was the charnel house of his finest fantasies. The burial ground of his forever. The garbage dump, the slain meat, the putrefying reality of his dreams and his Heaven.
Griffin stumbled away from her, hearing the shrieks of men needlessly drowned by his vanity, hearing the voiceless accusation of the devil proclaiming cowardice, hearing the orgasm-condemnation of lust that was never love, of brute desire that was never affection, and realizing at last that these were the real substances of his nature, the true faces of his sins, the marks in the ledger of a life he had never led, yet had worshipped silently at an altar of evil.
All these thoughts, as the guardian of Heaven, the keeper at the gate, the claimer of souls, the weigher of balances, advanced on him through the night.
“The Gate is Straight, Deep and Wide; Break On Through to the other side.”
A Mortal Antipathy (1885) This statement is often misquoted as "Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness".
Address at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; quoted in The Independent, London (22 March 1990)
“There are twin Gates of Sleep.
One, they say, is called the Gate of Horn
and it offers easy passage to all true shades.
The other glistens with ivory, radiant, flawless,
but through it the dead send false dreams up toward the sky.”
Sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur
Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris,
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 893–896 (tr. Fagles); the gates of horn and ivory.
“Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through.”
Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When He Returns
“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”