Authors — Quotes

Paulo Coelho Quotes: 176

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
The Alchemist
It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
The Alchemist
You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
I'm not saying that love always takes you to heaven. Your life can become a nightmare. But that said, it is worth taking the risk.
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
The Alchemist
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
The Alchemist
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
The Alchemist
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
The Alchemist
I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.
The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
The Alchemist
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.
The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.
The Alchemist
If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The Alchemist
Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes"to life?
Eleven Minutes
When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive.
The Zahir
Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
The Alchemist
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.
The Alchemist
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself.
Eleven Minutes
A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.
The Alchemist
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
Brida
Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Brida
When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.
The Devil and Miss Prym
If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day.
Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.
Tears are words that need to be written.
Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.
The Alchemist
There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them.But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.
The Fifth Mountain
The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.
Veronika Decides to Die
Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.
Eleven Minutes
This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.
The Alchemist
None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.
Brida
When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.
Eleven Minutes
I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.
I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.
Eleven Minutes
In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time.
The Devil and Miss Prym
Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.
Brida
Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.
Eleven Minutes
I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.
The Alchemist
Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.
How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.
Brida
No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it
Eleven Minutes
Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.
The Zahir
The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.
Eleven Minutes
What's the world's greatest lie?... It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.
When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
The Alchemist
After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.
The Witch Of Portobello
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
The Alchemist
You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say.
The Alchemist
No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.
The Zahir
Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.
Brida
If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.
The Alchemist
He knew one of the women well, and had shared his universe with her. They had seen the same mountains, and the same trees, although each of them had seem them differently. She knew his weaknesses, his moments of hatred, of despair. Yet she was there at his side. They shared the same universe.
The Valkyries
Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
But how will I know who my Soulmate is?” Brida felt that this was one of the most important questions she had ever asked in her life. By taking risks’ she said to Brida. ‘ By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in you search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.
Brida
Maktub"(It is written.)
The Alchemist
You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?
Veronika Decides to Die
Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is - love simply is.
If you love someone, you must be prepared to set them free.
The Winner Stands Alone
We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.
Love simply is.
The Witch Of Portobello
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.
If I must fall, may it be from a high place.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Sometimes, we are so attached to our way of life that we turn down wonderful opportunities simply because don't know what to do with it.
Like the Flowing River
When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.
Brida
When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The Alchemist
My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty of life once more. It's happened before, it will happen again, I'm sure. When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive--I'll find love again.
The Zahir
It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory
Aleph
Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes.
She didn't need to understand the meaning of life; it was enough to find someone who did, and then fall asleep in his arms and sleep as a child sleeps, knowing that someone stronger than you is protecting you from all evil and all danger
Brida
Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did.
The Devil and Miss Prym
We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body.
The Pilgrimage
Travel is never a matter of money but of courage
Aleph
In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the pricesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body.
Eleven Minutes
I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.
Veronika Decides to Die
I am surprised how difficult for people is to say "I love you". They only say the three magic words when they are sure they will hear "I love you too"back. C'mon! Spread the energy of love without expecting anything! Cowards are incapable of expressing love; it is the prerogative of the brave
Collective madness is called sanity ..
Veronika Decides to Die
Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
Aleph
Finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have togive up all the other important things.
Brida
What hurts us is what heals us
Aleph
But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.
The Alchemist
Only two things can reveal life's great secrets: suffering and love.
Aleph
Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.
The Alchemist
My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer.
The Alchemist
Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us,...
The Witch Of Portobello
In order to have faith in his own path, he does not need to prove that someone else's path is wrong.
Warrior of the Light
Try to find pleasure in the speed that you're not used to. Changing the way you do routine things allows a new person to grow inside of you. But when all is said and done, you're the one who must decide how you handle it.
Love is only a word, until we decide to let it possess us with all its force.Love is only a word, until someone arrives to give it meaning.Don't give up. Remember, it's always the last key on the key ring that opens the door.
Manuscript Found in Accra
Life moves very fast. It rushes from Heaven to Hell in a matter of seconds.
Because I don't live in either my past or my future.I'm interested only in the present".
The Alchemist
The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better.
Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.
The Alchemist
What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.
Eleven Minutes
Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.
I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
God only allows us to see such things when he wants something to change
Aleph
Go and get your things,' he said. 'Dreams mean work.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
I don't regret my painful times, i bare my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that that smile dimmed by tears
When we set out on the path, we always have a fairly clear idea of what we hope to find. Women are generally seeking their Soul Mate, and men looking for Power. Neither party is really interested in learning. They simply want to reach the thing they have set as their goal.
Brida
I don't regret the painful times; I bare my scars as if they were medals.
But if I don’t think about love, I will be nothing.
Eleven Minutes
It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and,when the wind turns against us,always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds,or to blame someone else for our mistakes.
Like the Flowing River
Stop thinking about life and choose to live it
The Fifth Mountain
All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect. Anyone who chooses a religion is also choosing a collective way for worshipping and sharing the mysteries. Nevertheless, that person is the only one responsible for his or her actions along the way and has no right to shift responsibility for any personal decisions on to that religion.
Like the Flowing River
The night is just a part of the day
Brida
Even God has a hell: his love of Mankind.
The Devil and Miss Prym
Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly
Sometimes the best of gods gift's arrive by the shattering of all the window panes.
Brida
Every moment in life is an act of faith
Brida
Do not try to explain feelings. Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from God.
Brida
I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that’s hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.
Brida
The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.
The Alchemist
Only children believe they're capable of everything.
Aleph
Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end.
Aleph
God hides the fires of hell within paradise.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Love, too, was just a question of time
The Devil and Miss Prym
People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.
The Alchemist
God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us to select a name for Him.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Fortunate are those who take the first steps.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Hide your craziness behind a beautiful smile. That's all you need.
Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.
One day you will wake up & there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.
We have been moving along at such a fast pace that we no longer know what we are doing. Now we have to wait until our soul catches up with us.
Maktub
I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure
The Alchemist
Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person's life its true meaning.
The Pilgrimage
There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.
The Alchemist
So long as you do no harm to another, change your opinion once in a while. Contradict yourself without being embarrassed. This is your right. It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case.
Maktub
to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from this world.
The Alchemist
God, I am trying to recover my faith. Please don't abandon me in the middle ofthis adventure, I prayed, pushing my fears aside.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
A Warrior of Light values a child's eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would
Warrior of the Light
if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading.
The Zahir
You don't need to climb a mountain to know that it's high.
Aleph
Negative desires can cause no evil if you do not allow yourself to be seduced by them.
Maktub
You don't seem mad at all,' she said.But I am, although I'm undergoing a cure, because my problem is that I lack a particular chemical. However, while I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being mad, living life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be. Do you know what exists out there, beyond the walls of Villete?
Veronika Decides to Die
You came so that you could learn about your dreams,"said the old woman. "And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language, I can interpret what he has said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul, it is only you who can understand.
Although I have the colors, only the Lord can mix them with such harmony.
The Fifth Mountain
I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings.
The Devil and Miss Prym
You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't a true love.. the love that speaks the language of the world.
What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don't all have the courage to confront our own dream.
The soil needs the seed and the seed needs the soil. The one only has meaning with the other. It is the same thing with human beings. When male knowledge joins with female transformation, then the great magical union is created, and its name is wisdom. Wisdom means both to know and to transform.
Brida
People no longer try to decipher the mystery of life but choose instead to be a part of it.
The Witch Of Portobello
When something undesirable grows in my soul, I ask God to give me the courage to mercilessly pluck it out.
Like the Flowing River