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Annie Besant

Annie Besant Books

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“The Lord comes forth to restore that which had been disturbed of the balanced interworking of the three gunas and to make again such balance between them as shall enable evolution to go forward smoothly and not be checked in its progress.”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“The evolution of force can only be made by struggle, by combat, by effort, by exercise, and inasmuch as I´shvara is building men and not babies, He must draw out men's forces by pulling against their strength, making them struggle in order to attain, and so vivifying into outer manifestation the life that otherwise would remain enfolded in itself.”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“That is why there are forces which you call evil. In this universe there is no evil; all is good that comes to us from I´shvara, but it sometimes comes in the guise of evil that, by opposing it, we may draw out our strength.”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“But not devotion alone marks this great One who is climbing his divine path. He must also be, as I´shvara is, a lover of humanity. Unless within him there burns the flame of love for men—nay, men, do I say? it is too narrow—unless within him burns the flame of love for everything that exists, moving and unmoving, in this universe”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“How would you learn right if you knew not wrong? How would you choose good if you knew not evil? How would you recognise the light if there were no darkness? How would you move if there were no resistance?”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“Were everything around us smooth and easy, we would remain supine, lethargic, indifferent. It is the whip of pain, of suffering, of disappointment, that drives us onward and brings out the forces of our internal life which otherwise would remain undeveloped.”

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Book:Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899
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“In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hourglass - all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors.”

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Book:The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant
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“If my interlocutor desires to convince me that Jupiter has inhabitants, and that his description of them is accurate, it is for him to bring forward evidence in support of his contention. The burden of proof evidently lies on him; it is not for me to prove that no such beings exist before my non-belief is justified, but for him to prove that they do exist before my belief can be fairly claimed. Similarly, it is for the affirmer of God's existence to bring evidence in support of his affirmation; the burden of proof lies on him.”

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Book:The Origins of Theosophy (Routledge Revivals): Annie Besant - The Atheist Years
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“This coarse and insulting way of regarding woman, as though they existed merely to be the safety-valves of men's passions, and that the best men were above the temptation of loving them, has been the source of unnumbered evils.”

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Book:Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History
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“'Nature is conquered by obedience' - and her resistless energies are at our bidding, as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success.”

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Book:The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant
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“The Soul which is approaching its' liberation, as it looks back over past lives... down the vistas of the centuries along which it has slowly been climbing,... is able to see there the way in which the bonds were made, the causes which set it in motion. It is able to see how many of those causes have worked themselves out and... how many... are still working themselves out.”

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Author:Annie Besant
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“Once a person has taken their life, in the inner realms, the suicide will repeat automatically the feelings of despair and fear which preceded his self murder, and go through the act and the death struggle time after time with ghastly persistence... They remain conscious - often entangled in the final scene of the earth life for a very long time, unaware that they have lost the physical body.”

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Author:Annie Besant
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“Control of the tongue! Vital for the man who would try to tread the Path, for no harsh or unkind word, no hasty impatient phrase, may escape from the tongue which is consecrated to service, and which must not injure even an enemy; for that which wounds has no place in the Kingdom of Love.”

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Book:Daily meditations on the path and its qualifications: from the works of Annie Besant
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“After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so philosophic, and none so spiritual as the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. The more you know it, the more you will love it; the more you try to understand it, the more deeply you will value it”

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Book:The Relativity of Hindu Ethics
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“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.”

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Book:The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant
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“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.”

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Book:The Changing World: And Lectures to Theosophical Students; Fifteen Lectures Delivered in London During May, June, and July 1909
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“Quick condemnation of all that is not ours, of views with which we disagree, of ideas that do not attract us, is the sign of a narrow mind, of an uncultivated intelligence. Bigotry is always ignorant, and the wise boy, who will become the wise man, tries to understand and to see the truth in ideas with which he does not agree.”

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Book:The Birth of New India: A Collection of Writings and Speeches on Indian Affairs
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“The generous wish to share with all what is precious, to spread broadcast priceless truths, to shut out none from the illumination of true knowledge, has resulted in a zeal without discretion that has vulgarised Christianity, and has presented its teachings in a form that often repels the heart and alienates the intellect.”

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Book:The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant
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