Annie Besant Quotes

If we don't empower ourselves with knowledge, then we're gonna be led down a garden path.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Man should be master of his environment, not its slave. That is what freedom means.

O people of America. The destinies of your country are in your own hands. They are committed to your own keeping. It is for you to say which ye will have, liberty or slavery, knowledge or ignorance, happiness or misery.

Thus far woman has struggled through life with bandaged eyes, accepting the dogma of her weakness and inability to take care of herself not only physically but intellectually. She has held out a trembling hand and received gratefully the proffered aid. She has foregone her right to study, to know the laws and purposes of government to which she is subject. But there is now awakened in her a consciousness that she is defrauded of her legitimate Rights and that she never can fulfill her mission until she is placed in that position to which she feels herself called by the divinity within. Hitherto she has surrendered her person and her individuality to man, but she can no longer do this and not feel that she is outraging her nature and her God

... what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.

But regardless of our circumstances, they do not define us - not unless we give in and let them. Circumstances never determine who we are; they reveal who we are.

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.

We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.

Power is not a material possession that can be given, it is the ability to act. Power must be taken, it is never given.

We, however, want to become those we are--human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense--while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics--our honesty!

The only way you can be successful on a post or win at it is to be at cause over it.

We are both burdened and blessed by the great responsibility of the will - the power of choice. Our future is determined, in large part, by the choices we make now. We cannot always control our circumstances, but we can and do choose our response to whatever arises. Reclaiming the power of choice, we find the courage to live fully in the world.

You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

It doesn't matter what one reveals or what one keeps to oneself. Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we don't have enough personal power the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and it won't make a damn bit of difference.

Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no knowledge to its possessor.

She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost.

Rise up Black Men, and take your stand. Reach up black men and women and pull all nature’s knowledge to you. Turn ye around and make a conquest of everything North and South, East and West. And then we you have wrought well, you will have merited God's blessing, you will become God's chosen people and naturally you'll become leaders of the world.

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.

Knowledge is the key to making a difference.

I didn't have this rebellious streak in me. To me, I'm a product of circumstance.

Either you are creating your life or the circumstances are.

The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.

Power only tires those who don't exercise it.