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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

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
Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.
ANNIE BESANT

Civilization Development Evolution Intelligence Man Mental Place Simplicity
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
Theosophy tries to bridge the gulf between Buddhism and Christianity by pointing to the fundamental spiritual truths on which both religions are built, and by winning people to regard the Buddha and the Christ as fellow-laborers, and not as rivals.
ANNIE BESANT

Fundamental People Religion Spiritual Truth Try Win
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
Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end.
ANNIE BESANT

End Evil Imperfection
Thought creates character.
ANNIE BESANT

Character Creation One Liner Thinking
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
Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.
ANNIE BESANT

Civilization Development Evolution Intelligence Man Mental Place Simplicity
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
Celibacy is not natural to men or to women; all bodily needs require their legitimate satisfaction, and celibacy is a disregard of natural law.
ANNIE BESANT

Body Law Man Nature Need Satisfaction
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

Dreams Impression Knowledge Learning
Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.
ANNIE BESANT

Act Better Preparation Silence Thinking Yourself
Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.
ANNIE BESANT

Believe Evidence Experience Limitation Logic Mad Ourselves Position
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
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
In the light of reincarnation life changes its aspect, for it becomes the school of the eternal Man within us, who seeks therein his development, the Man that was and is and shall be, for whom the hour will never strike.
ANNIE BESANT

Change Development Forever Life Light Man Seek Time
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
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
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
Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought.
ANNIE BESANT

God Human Mad Possible Thinking
The world, with all its beauty, its happiness and suffering, its joys and pains, is planned with the utmost ingenuity, in order that the powers of the Self may be shown forth in manifestation.
ANNIE BESANT

Beautiful Happiness Power Suffering World
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
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
Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.
ANNIE BESANT

Deep Difference Divine Empty Light Meditation Soul Spiritual Wait
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
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

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.

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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.

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