Quotes from Annie 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.

The idea that Buddhism denies what is called in the West 'individual immortality' is a mistake, so far as the Buddhist scriptures are concerned.

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.

The birth of science rang the death-knell of an arbitrary and constantly interposing Supreme Power.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

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.

To me in my childhood, elves and fairies of all sorts were very real things, and my dolls were as really children as I was myself a child.

India is the mother of religion. In her are combined science and religion in perfect harmony, and that is the Hindu religion, and it is India that shall be again the spiritual mother of the world.

No circumstances can ever make or mar the unfolding of the spiritual life. Spirituality does not depend upon the environment; it depends upon one's attitude towards life.

Within you lies embedded in the marble of your human life the Spirit that is God, hidden beneath the flesh, hidden beneath the bodies, the emotions and the mind, so that it is not visible to the outer eyes. You have not to create that image. It is there. You have not to manufacture it; you have only to set it free.

Death cannot touch the higher consciousness of man ... it can only separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are concerned; the man living on earth, blinded by matter, feels separated from those who have passed onwards, but ... there is no such thing as Death at all.

India is a country in which every great religion finds a home.

Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.

Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.

Life is not a monotone but a many-stringed harmony, and to this harmony is contributed a distinctive note by each individual.

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

Were it possible that God should now reveal Himself to us as He is, the Being of Whose Nature we can form no conception, I believe that we should remain as ignorant as we are at present, from the want of faculties to receive that revelation: the Divine language might sound in our ears, but it would be as unintelligible as the roar of the thunder-clap, or the moan of the earthquake, or the whisper of the wind to the leaves of the cedar-tree.

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.

As civilisation advances, the deities lessen in number, the divine powers become concentrated more and more in one Being, and God rules over the whole earth.

When you are trying to live the life of the Spirit, you will try to be pure. You do well, but why? In order that you may be pure, and leave your impure brethren in their impurity? Oh no! You must try to be pure, in order that there may be more purity in the world to share amongst all men.

The true Mystic, realising God, has no need of any Scriptures, for he has touched the source whence all Scriptures flow.

Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices.

That is the true definition of sin; when knowing right you do the lower, ah, then you sin. Where there is no knowledge, sin is not present.

And Nature is enough for us, gives us all the light we want and all that we, as yet, are fitted to receive.