"40. Q. And how did he expect to learn the cause of sorrow in the jungle? A. By removing far away from all that could prevent his thinking deeply of the causes of sorrow and the nature of man... He went away into the forest near Uruvela, and spent six years in deep meditation, undergoing the severest discipline in mortifying his body... five Brāhman companions attended him."

“123. Q. Do these differ with each individual? A. Yes: but all men suffer from them in degree.”

“27. Q. Why did he do this? A. To discover the cause of our sufferings and the way to escape from them.”

“So long as one's perceptions are restricted to sensuous experiences, one's knowledge will be proportionately small; to become truly wise, one must burst the bonds of illusion, tear away the curtain of MAYA, break the chains of passion, learn the self and put it in command of our consciousness and our actions.”

“The history of Sākya Muni's life is the strongest bulwark of his religion. As long as the human heart is capable of being touched by tales of heroic self-sacrifice, accompanied by purity and celestial benevolence of motive, it will cherish his memory.”

“The handbills announce me as the President of the Theosophical Society, and you gathered here to learn what Theosophy is and what are its relations with Spiritualism. Let me say then, that in the sense given to it by those who first used it, the word means divine wisdom, or the knowledge of divine wisdom, or the knowledge of divine things... Essentially, a Theosophical Society is one which favours man’s original acquisition of knowledge about the hidden things of the universe by the education and perfecting of his own latent powers.”

“29. Q. But how did he acquire this boundless love? A. Throughout numberless births and aeons of years he had been cultivating this love, with the unfaltering determination to become a Buddha.”