“India demands Home Rule for two reasons, one essential and vital, the other less important but necessary: Firstly, because Freedom is the birthright of every Nation; secondly, because her most important interests are now made subservient to the interests of the British Empire without her consent, and her resources are not utilised for her greatest needs.”
The Case For India (1917), Chapter III
“for under the soft, loving, pliable girl there lay hidden, as much unknown to herself as to her surroundings, a woman of strong dominant will, strength that panted for expression and rebelled against restraint, fiery and passionate emotions that were seething under compression—a most undesirable partner to sit in the lady’s arm-chair on the domestic rug before the fire.”
Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter IV
“Against the teachings of eternal torture, of the vicarious atonement, of the infallibility of the Bible, I levelled all the strength of my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of the Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions, its religious wars, its cruelties, its oppressions.”
Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter VII
“(On H.P.B) And we, who lived around her, who in closest intimacy watched her day after day, we bear witness to the unselfish beauty of her life, the nobility of her character, and we lay at her feet our most reverent gratitude for knowledge gained, lives purified, strength developed.”
Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter XIV
“And thus I came through storm to peace, not to the peace of an untroubled sea of outer life, which no strong soul can crave, but to an inner peace that outer troubles may not avail to ruffle—a peace which belongs to the eternal not to the transitory, to the depths not to the shallows of life.”
Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter XIV
“I presume that very few men and very few women would be willing to go and catch hold either sheep or of oxen and themselves slaughter the creatures in order that they may eat. […] Now, I venture to submit that if people want to eat meat, they should kill the animals for themselves, that they have no right to degrade other people by work of that sort. Nor should they say that if they did not do it the slaughter would still go on. […] Every person who eats meat takes a share in that degradation of his fellow-men; on him and on her personally lies the share, and personally lies the responsibility”.
* Annie Besant, Vegetarianism in the Light of Theosophy, 1913, P. 18-20
“But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigour, a young man of four and twenty [24], married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years, at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men’s lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection.”
* Annie Besant, The Life and Teachings of Muhammad (1932), p. 4
“An imperious necessity forces me to speak the truth, as I see it, whether the speech please or displease, whether it bring praise or blame. That one loyalty to Truth I must keep stainless, whatever friendships fail me or human ties be broken. She may lead me into the wilderness, yet I must follow her; she may strip me of all love, yet I must pursue her; though she slay me, yet will I trust in her; and I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but”
“‘SHE TRIED TO FOLLOW TRUTH.'”
Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter XIV
“Mysticism is the realisation of God, of the Universal Self. It is attained either as a realisation of God outside the Mystic, or within himself. In the first case, it is usually reached from within a religion, by exceptionally intense love and devotion, accompanied by purity of life, for only “the pure in heart shall see God.”
Annie Besant The Basis of Morality (1915)
“The true Mystic, realising God, has no need of any Scriptures, for he has touched the source whence all Scriptures flow.”
Annie Besant The Basis of Morality (1915)
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