black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We learn much during our sleep, and the knowledge thus gained slowly filters into the physical brain, and is occasionally impressed upon it as a vivid and illuminative dream.

Annie Besant

A myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows.
ANNIE BESANT

Difference Fantasy History Shadow Story True
This Old Testament – containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality – is by English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy – if there were anyone to be blasphemed – blacker and more insolent than any word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker.
ANNIE BESANT

Authority Divine Freedom Law Mad Mistake Moral Thinking Word Writing
When we realise our oneness with our RULER, then the matter shall have no longer power over us, and we shall see it as the unreality it is.
ANNIE BESANT

God Ourselves Power Reality Rule See
Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.
ANNIE BESANT

Act Better Preparation Silence Thinking Yourself
What, after all, is the object of education? To train the body in health, vigor and grace, so that it may express the emotions in beauty and the mind with accuracy and strength.
ANNIE BESANT

Beautiful Body Education Emotion Expression Health Strength Training
Someone ought to do it, but why should I? Someone ought to do it, so why not I? Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution.
ANNIE BESANT

Evolution Lie Moral Sentence Work
For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
ANNIE BESANT

Evil Greatness Hate Leadership Woman
The soul grows by reincarnation in bodies provided by nature, more complex, more powerful, as the soul unfolds greater and greater faculties. And so the soul climbs upward into the light eternal. And there is no fear for any child of man, for inevitably he climbs towards God.
ANNIE BESANT

Ability Body Born Children God Greatness Growth Light Man Nature Soul
I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.
ANNIE BESANT

Blame Doubt Faith Home Humanity Liberty Life Lost Moral Mother Protection Respect Wife
Knowledge is essential to conquest; only according to our ignorance are we helpless. Thought creates character. Character can dominate conditions. Will creates circumstances and environment.
ANNIE BESANT

Character Creation Domination Environment Help Ignorance Knowledge
The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.
ANNIE BESANT

Evolution Human Misery Ourselves
The highest Hindu intellectual training was based on the practice of yoga, and produced, as its fruit, those marvellous philosophical systems, the six Darshanas and the Brahma Sutras, which are still the delight of scholars and the inspiration of occultists and mystics.
ANNIE BESANT

Fruit Inspirational Intellectual Training Philosophy Practice Production Religious Spiritual System
Where love rules, laws are not needed.
ANNIE BESANT

Law Love Need Rule
There is a charm in making a stew, to the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the mixture.
ANNIE BESANT

Charm Competition Excitement Result Survive Wonder
Muhammadan law in its relation to women, is a pattern to European law. Look back to the history of Islam, and you will find that women have often taken leading places – on the throne, in the battle-field, in politics, in literature, poetry, etc.
ANNIE BESANT

Battle God Law Leadership Literature Place Poetry Politics Relation Woman
Man peoples his current living space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions.
ANNIE BESANT

Desire Live Man Passion People Space World
Strange indeed would it be if all the space around us be empty, mere waste void, and the inhabitants of Earth the only forms in which intelligence could clothe itself.
ANNIE BESANT

Clothes Earth Herself Intelligence Space Strange
There is no birthright in the white skin that it shall say that wherever it goes, to any nation, amongst any people, there the people of the country shall give way before it, and those to whom the land belongs shall bow down and become its servants.
ANNIE BESANT

Born Nation People Right Servant Skin
God is immanent in every atom, all-pervading, all-sustaining, all-evolving; He is its source and its end, its cause and its object, its centre and circumference; it is built on Him as its sure foundation, it breathes in Him as its encircling space; He is in everything and everything in Him.
ANNIE BESANT

Breathe Build End Foundation God Himself Space
The man of meditation is the man who wastes no time, scatters no energy, misses no opportunity.
ANNIE BESANT

Energy Man Meditation Missing Opportunity Wasted Time
A common religion is not possible for India, but a recognition of a common basis for all religions, and the growth of a liberal, tolerant spirit in religious matters, are possible.
ANNIE BESANT

Growth Liberty Possible Recognition Religion Spirit Tolerance
Death is but an aspect of life, and the destruction of one material form is but a prelude to building up of another.
ANNIE BESANT

Build Death Destruction Life Material
Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.
ANNIE BESANT

Argument God Greatness Hate Liberty Nation Passion Strong
Belief in karma ought to make the life pure, strong, serene and glad. Only our own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us. Once let men recognize this truth, and the hour of their liberation has struck. Nature cannot enslave the soul that by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love.
ANNIE BESANT

Belief Happiness Karma Liberty Life Love Man Nature Peace Power Purity Recognition Soul Strong Truth Wisdom
When a man, a woman, see their little daily tasks as integral portions of the one great work, they are no longer drudges but co-workers with God.
ANNIE BESANT

God Greatness Man Woman Work
Socialism is the ideal state, but it can never be achieved while man is so selfish.
ANNIE BESANT

Achievement Ideal Man
When we recognise that unity of all living things, then at once arises the question – how can we support this life of ours with least injury to the lives around us; how can we prevent our own life adding to the suffering of the world in which we live?
ANNIE BESANT

Injury Life Live Question Recognition Suffering Unity World

We learn much during our sleep, and the knowledge thus gained slowly filters into the physical brain, and is occasionally impressed upon it as a vivid and illuminative dream.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We learn much during our sleep, and the knowledge thus gained slowly filters into the physical brain, and is occasionally impressed upon it as a vivid and illuminative dream.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Annie Besant Quotes