Quotes by Annie Besant

About Annie Besant:

Annie Besant was a prominent British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

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 penne...

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.

Annie Besant

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

Annie Besant

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

Annie Besant

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

Annie Besant

The human body is constantly undergoing a process of decay and of reconstruction. First builded into the astral form in the womb of the mother, it is built up continually by the insetting of fresh materials. With every moment tiny molecules are passi...

Annie Besant

Jeremiah is a most melancholy prophet. He wails from beginning to end; he is often childish, is rarely indecent, and although it may be blasphemy to say so, he and his 'Lamentations' are really not worth reading.

Annie Besant

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

Annie Besant

The worlds in which man is evolving as he treads the circle of births and deaths are three: the physical world, the astral or intermediate world, the mental or heavenly world.

Annie Besant

The body is never more alive than when it is dead; but it is alive in its units, and dead in its totality; alive as a congeries, dead as an organism.

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.

Annie Besant

There can be no wise politics without thought beforehand.

Annie Besant

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

Annie Besant

My first serious attempts at writing were made in 1868, and I took up two very different lines of composition; I wrote some short stories of a very flimsy type, and also a work of a much more ambitious character, 'The Lives of the Black Letter Saints...

Annie Besant

For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.

Annie Besant

Author Bio

  • NameAnnie Besant
  • DescriptionBritish socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator
  • AliasesAnnie Wood Besant
  • BornOctober 1, 1847
  • DiedSeptember 20, 1933
  • CountryUnited Kingdom; India
  • ProfessionEssayist; Author