Annie Besant

A prophet is always much wider than his followers, much more liberal than those who label themselves with his name.

— Annie Besant

Representative institutions are as much a part of the true Briton as his language and his literature.

— Annie Besant

That is the true definition of sin; when knowing right you do the lower, ah, then you sin. Where there is no…

— Annie Besant

Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end.

— Annie Besant

It is not monogamy when there is one legal wife, and mistresses out of sight.

— Annie Besant

Nature is always lavish of her gifts even to the most insignificant forms. The butterflies and moths are richly dowered in this…

— Annie Besant

The Buddha over and over again spoke clearly and definitely on post-mortem states - as in his conversation with Vasetta.

— Annie Besant

My own life in India, since I came to it in 1893 to make it my home, has been devoted to one…

— Annie Besant

As civilisation advances, the deities lessen in number, the divine powers become concentrated more and more in one Being, and God rules…

— Annie Besant

Man is a spiritual intelligence, who has taken flesh with the object of gaining experience in worlds below the spiritual, in order…

— Annie Besant

The essence of religion is the knowledge of God which is eternal life. That and nothing less than that is religion. Everything…

— Annie Besant

My first serious attempts at writing were made in 1868, and I took up two very different lines of composition; I wrote…

— Annie Besant

Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal…

— Annie Besant

The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and…

— Annie Besant

You should always take a religion at its best and not at its worst, from its highest teachings and not from the…

— Annie Besant

Control of the tongue! Vital for the man who would try to tread the Path, for no harsh or unkind word, no…

— Annie Besant

At the solemn moment of death, every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before…

— Annie Besant

The divine life is the spirit in everything that exists, from the atom to the archangel; the grain of dust could not…

— Annie Besant

We were an ill-matched pair, my husband and I, from the very outset; he, with very high ideas of a husband's authority…

— Annie Besant

In a deep metaphysical sense, all that is conditioned is illusory. All phenomena are literally 'appearances,' the outer masks in which the…

— Annie Besant

Quick condemnation of all that is not ours, of views with which we disagree, of ideas that do not attract us, is…

— Annie Besant

Yoga is a science, and not a vague dreamy drifting or imagining. It is an applied science, a systematized collection of laws…

— Annie Besant

It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught…

— Annie Besant

After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none…

— Annie Besant

When we realise our oneness with our RULER, then the matter shall have no longer power over us, and we shall see…

— Annie Besant

Every person, every race, every nation, has its own particular keynote which it brings to the general chord of life and of…

— Annie Besant

Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were, in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and knowledge.

— Annie Besant

I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the…

— Annie Besant

To me in my childhood, elves and fairies of all sorts were very real things, and my dolls were as really children…

— Annie Besant

It is the duty of the followers of Islam to spread through the civilised world, a knowledge of what Islam means -…

— Annie Besant

Never yet was a nation born that did not begin in the spirit, pass to the heart and the mind, and then…

— Annie Besant

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

— Annie Besant

I have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength, and have paid heavily for the weakness.

— Annie Besant

An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to…

— Annie Besant

There is no life without consciousness; there is no consciousness without life.

— Annie Besant

As a man may be born with a mathematical faculty, and by training that faculty year after year may immensely increase his…

— Annie Besant

This coarse and insulting way of regarding woman, as though they existed merely to be the safety-valves of men's passions, and that…

— Annie Besant

Debating clubs among boys are very useful, not only as affording pleasant meetings and interesting discussions, but also as serving for training…

— Annie Besant

The idea of reverence for God is transmitted from parent to child, it is educated into an abnormal development, and thus almost…

— Annie Besant

When we recognise that unity of all living things, then at once arises the question - how can we support this life…

— Annie Besant