Annie Besant Quotes
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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie Besant 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 BesantAnnie Besant Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end.
Annie BesantAnnie Besant Death is but an aspect of life, and the destruction of one material form is but a prelude to building up of another.
Annie BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie Besant 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 BesantAnnie Besant There is no life without consciousness; there is no consciousness without life.
Annie BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie Besant Man is a spiritual intelligence, who has taken flesh with the object of gaining experience in worlds below the spiritual, in order that he may be able to master and to rule them, and in later ages take his place in the creative and directing hierarchies of the universe.
Annie BesantAnnie Besant 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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie 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 BesantAnnie Besant