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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

Socialism is the ideal state, but it can never be achieved while man is so selfish.
ANNIE BESANT

Achievement Ideal Man
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
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
All men die. You may say: ‘Is that encouraging?’ Surely yes, for when a man dies, his blunders, which are of the form, all die with him, but the things in him that are part of the life never die, although the form be broken.
ANNIE BESANT

Break Death Encouragement Life Man Mistake Spiritual
There is much, of course, in the exclusive claims of Christianity which make it hostile to other faiths.
ANNIE BESANT

Faith Religion
The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.
ANNIE BESANT

Evolution Human Misery Ourselves
You should always take a religion at its best and not at its worst, from its highest teachings and not from the lowest practices of some of its adherents.
ANNIE BESANT

Best Practice Religion Teaching Worst Yourself
Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and – as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis – emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness.
ANNIE BESANT

Death Immortal Man Repeat Skin
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
I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the faith which preaches monogamy. In AI Quran the law about woman is juster and more liberal.
ANNIE BESANT

Freedom Justice Law Liberty Protection Religious Right Woman
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
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
I will suggest that the great aim of our education is to bring out of the child who comes into our hands every faculty that he brings with him, and then to try to win that child to turn all his abilities, his powers, his capacities, to the helping and serving of the community which is a part.
ANNIE BESANT

Ability Children Community Education Greatness Hands Power Service Win
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
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
In a 50 mile radius around Chicago one can see the red aura of pain, agony, terror, anger from all the animals being butchered there.
ANNIE BESANT

Angry Hard Time Pain See
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
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
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
Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to face many a danger, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.
ANNIE BESANT

Adventure Battle Country Dangerous Face Forget Inspirational Joy Life Lose Noble Win
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 true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind.
ANNIE BESANT

Action Blessing Kind Live Man Moral Ourselves Rule True
No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.
ANNIE BESANT

Atheist Goodness Happiness Philosophy Religion World
Theosophy has no code of morals, being itself the embodiment of the highest morality; it presents to its students the highest moral teachings of all religions, gathering the most fragrant blossoms from the gardens of the world-faiths.
ANNIE BESANT

Faith Garden Moral Present Religion Student Teaching World
Beauty is no dead thing. It is the manifestation of God in nature. There is not one object in nature untouched by man that is not beautiful, for God’s manifestation is beauty. It shines through all His works, and not only in those that may give pleasure to man.
ANNIE BESANT

Beautiful Death God Happiness Himself Man Nature Shine Touch Work
The essence of religion is the knowledge of God which is eternal life. That and nothing less than that is religion. Everything else is on the surface, is superfluous save for the needs of men.
ANNIE BESANT

Forever God Knowledge Life Man Need Religion
Death cannot touch the higher consciousness of man it can only separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are concerned; the man living on earth, blinded by matter, feels separated from those who have passed onwards, but there is no such thing as Death at all.
ANNIE BESANT

Death Feeling Live Love Man Separate Touch

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.

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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.

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