Annie Besant quotes - page 5

There is much, of course, in the exclusive claims of Christianity which make it hostile to other faiths. (Annie Besant)
The sunlight ranges over the universe, and at incarnation we step out of it into the twilight of the body, and see but dimly during the period of our incarceration; at death we step out of the prison again into the sunlight, and are nearer to the reality. View quote
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. View quote
Annie Besant
After death we live for some time in the astral world in the astral body used during our life on earth, and the more we learn to control and use it wisely now the better for us after death. View quote
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. View quote
Annie Besant
The mental body, like the astral, varies much in different people; it is composed of coarser or of finer matter, according to the needs of the more or less unfolded consciousness connected with it. In the educated it is active and well-defined; in the undeveloped it is cloudy and inchoate. View quote
Annie Besant
Never yet was a nation born that did not begin in the spirit, pass to the heart and the mind, and then take an outer form in the world of men. View quote
Annie Besant
What is the essence of theosophy? It is the fact that man, being himself divine, can know the divinity whose life he shares. As an inevitable corollary to this supreme truth comes the fact of the brotherhood of man. View quote
Annie Besant
As the heat of the coal differs from the coal itself, so do memory, perception, judgment, emotion, and will, differ from the brain which is the instrument of thought. View quote
Annie Besant
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. View quote
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)
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. View quote
Annie Besant
Representative institutions are as much a part of the true Briton as his language and his literature. View quote
Annie Besant
There is far more misunderstanding of Islam than there is, I think, of the other religions of the world. So many things are said of it by those who do not belong to that faith. View quote
Annie Besant
What is a philosophy? It Is an answer satisfactory to the reason to all the great problems of life. That is what is meant by philosophy. It must satisfy the reason, and it must show the unity underlying the endless diversity of the facts that science observes. View quote
Annie Besant
The idea that Buddhism denies what is called in the West individual immortality is a mistake, so far as the Buddhist scriptures are concerned. View quote
Annie Besant
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. View quote
Annie Besant
As a man may be born with a mathematical faculty, and by training that faculty year after year may immensely increase his mathematical capacity, so may a man be born with certain faculties within him, faculties belonging to the soul, which he can develop by training and by discipline. View quote
Annie Besant
The birth of science rang the death-knell of an arbitrary and constantly interposing Supreme Power. View quote
Annie Besant
The Buddha over and over again spoke clearly and definitely on post-mortem states - as in his conversation with Vasetta. View quote
Annie Besant
Every form, not being the whole, must, of necessity, be imperfect; less than the whole, it cannot be identical with the whole, and being less than the whole and, therefore, imperfect by itself, it shows imperfection as evil, and only the totality of a universe can mirror the image of God. (Annie Besant)
Islam believes in many prophets, and Al Quran is nothing but a confirmation of the old Scriptures. View quote
Annie Besant
Man is ever searching for the source whence he has come, searching for the life which is upwelling within him, immortal, nay, eternal and divine; and every religion is the answer from the Universal Spirit to the seeking spirits of men that came forth from Him. View quote
Annie Besant
At the solemn moment of death, every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life. View quote
Annie Besant
There can be no wise politics without thought beforehand. View quote
Annie Besant