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 BESANTThere 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.
More Annie Besant Quotes
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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Clairvoyants can see flashes of colour, constantly changing, in the aura that surrounds every person: each thought, each feeling, thus translating itself in the astral world, visible to the astral sight.
ANNIE BESANT -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
There is much, of course, in the exclusive claims of Christianity which make it hostile to other faiths.
ANNIE BESANT -
Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.
ANNIE BESANT -
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 -
An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to judge of its future.
ANNIE BESANT -
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 -
Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end.
ANNIE BESANT -
Every person, every race, every nation, has its own particular keynote which it brings to the general chord of life and of humanity.
ANNIE BESANT -
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