The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

by Henry Steel Olcott

Everything in the world of Matter is unreal; the only reality is in the world of Spirit. Emancipate yourselves from the tyranny of the former; strive to attain the latter.

What remains is that changeless part of man, which most philosophers call Spirit, and Nirvāṇa is its necessary condition of existence.

He found that the pleasures of the eye, the ear, the taste, touch and smell are fleeting and deceptive: he who gives value to them brings only disappointment and bitter sorrow upon himself.

He who can mount to a clear conception of Nirvāṇa will find his thought far away above the common joys and sorrows of petty men.

His law is in harmony with the voices of Nature, and the evident equilibrium of the universe.