Quotes from besant annie ii

Thought is power -- real, objective power. Moreover, the thoughts we create have a life of their own. They have a kind of material reality that affects other people for good or ill -- hence our responsibility to chose.

No durable things are built on violent passion. Nature grows her plants in silence and in darkness, and only when they have become strong do they put their heads above the ground.

What is the constitution of the universe? The universe is the manifestation of the divine thought; the thought of God embodies itself in the thought-forms that we call worlds.

The whole Christian scheme turns on the assumption of the inherent necessity of some one standing between the Creator and the creature, and shielding the all-weak from the power of the All-mighty.

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

Anyone who has reached a certain stage of intellectual knowledge will recognise the unity of mankind.... That intellectual recognition of the unity is practically universal among educated people; but very few are prepared to carry out the intellectual recognition into practical life and practical training.

Marriage differs from all ordinary contracts in the extreme difficulty of dissolving it—a difficulty arising from the ecclesiastical character which has been imposed upon it, and from the fact that it has been looked upon as a religious bond instead of as a civil contract.

There appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in Nature, although we have seen that intelligence is, strictly speaking, impossible. There cannot be perception, memory, comparison, or judgment; but may there not be a perfect mind, unchanging, calm, and still?

If, therefore, Atheism is true, all controversy about miracles is useless. They are simply impossible, and to inquire whether an impossible event has happened is absurd.

Morality never faileth; but, whether there be dogmas, they shall fail; whether there be creeds, they shall cease; whether there be churches, they shall crumble away; but morality shall abide for evermore and endure as long as the endless circle of Nature revolves around the Eternal Throne.

Does morality consist in obedience to the will of a perfectly moral Being, and are we to aim at righteousness of life because in so doing we please God? Or are we to lead noble lives because nobility of life is desirable for itself alone, and because it spreads happiness around us and satisfies the desires of our own nature?

So long as you feel yourself separate from others, so long are you shut out from the realisation of the unity; so long as you say "my" and "mine," so long the realisation of the Spirit is not yet possible for you.

Wise men, in modern times, are striving earnestly and zealously to, as far as possible, free religion from the cramping and deadening effect of creeds and formularies, in order that it may be able to expand with the expanding thought of the day.

Yoga is a matter of the Spirit and not of the intellect. For just as water will find its way through every obstruction, in order to rise to the level of its source, so does the spirit in man strive upwards ever towards the source whence it came.

For so reverent is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man, that He will not even pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life unless that soul is willing to receive it.