Henry Steel Olcott
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (Sinhala: කර්නල් හෙන්රි ස්ටීල් ඔල්කට්) (August 2, 1832 – February 17, 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.
Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. Olcott is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts in interpreting Buddhism through a Westernized lens.
Olcott was a major revivalist of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and he is still honored in Sri Lanka for these efforts. Olcott has been called by Sri Lankans "one of the heroes in the struggle of our independence and a pioneer of the present religious, national and cultural revival".
Read more about Henry Steel Olcott: Biographical Overview, Theosophical Society, Buddhist Catechism, Death and Legacy, Works
Famous quotes containing the words henry, steel and/or olcott:
“Today everything is different. I can’t even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and catsup. I’m an average nobody, I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”
—Nicholas Pileggi, U.S. screenwriter, and Martin Scorsese. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta)
“The complaint ... about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernes, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“My wild Irish Rose,
The sweetest flow’r that grows.”
—Chauncey Olcott (1858–1932)