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Paulo Coelho Quotes (1947-)
Writer, Poet
About Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho de Souza (IPA: ˈpau̯lu ˈko̯eʎu) (born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian poet and writer.
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“I forgive the indifference and ill will,”
“I forgive the hatred and the persecution,”
“I forgive the pain and the disappointments,”
“Of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties,”
“I can’t tell someone that their dreams are impossible.”
“Seek to live. Remembrance is for the old.”
“Time neither moves nor is stationary. Time changes. ”
“I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return,”
“To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.”
“In my world, everything is possible and everything is relative.”
“Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign o terror in the shadow of the guillotine.”
“So, in my relationships with men, I’ve always sought suffering, conflict, and despair.”
“Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again.”
“Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks, and do what you really want to do.”
“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
“Don’t let yourself be destroyed by a force that was placed in our hearts in order to make everything better.”
“If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions.”
“Love is the only thing that will save us, independent of any mistakes we may make. Love is always stronger.”
“People aren’t used to that way of thinking. They want everything to stay the same—and the consequence of that is pain,”.”
“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”
“We must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules.”
“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.”
“Brazil is my way to see the world. Being born in that country means: "you don't have a wall separating the physical reality from the magical reality."”
“I told you that your dream was a difficult one. '''It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.”
“At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”
“As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not. Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!”
“Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.”
“First develop a strategy that utilizes everything around you. The best way to prepare for a challenge is to cultivate the ability to call on an infinite variety of responses.”
“If I were to persuade just one person to stop fighting for something they were convinced was worthwhile, I would end up persuading myself, and my whole life would be diminished.”
“We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.”
“There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.”
“The world is divided into those who understand me and those who don’t. In the case of the latter, I simply leave them to torment themselves trying to gain my sympathy.”
“ As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.”
“Life is one long training session in preparation for what will come. Life and death lose their meaning; there are only challenges to be met with joy and overcome with tranquility.”
“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.”
“Love simply is. That is the testament of Athena or Sherine or Hagia Sofia — love is. No definitions. Love and don't ask too many questions. Just love.”
“Every note leaves in each of us a memory, but it is the melody as a whole that tells a story, the story of someone wanting to get closer to another person and who keeps on trying, despite repeated rejections.”
“Veronika brought her interior monologue to a close and made a promise to herself: she would not leave Villete alive. It was best to put an end to everything now, while she was still brave and healthy enough to die.”
“I love you like a river that creates the right conditions for trees and bushes and flowers to flourish along its banks. I love you like a river that gives water to the thirsty and takes people where they want to go.”
“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.”
“It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. You can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.”
“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?”
“Don't think about what you've left behind, the alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever."”
“The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.”
“I ask myself: are defeats necessary?
Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
“There is one great truth on this planet: 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.... The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.”
“The wise men understood that this natural world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That's what I mean by action.”
“I have only one certainty: there exists a parallel spiritual universe that impinges on the world in which we live. Apart from that, everything else seems absurd to me—sacred books, revelations, guides, manuals, ceremonies … and, what is worse, they appear to have no lasting effects.”
““No one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I’m not telling you to seek out other writers but to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm”.”
“The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions — hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity — also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.”
“If you rely only on experience, you’ll simply keep applying old solutions to new problems. I know a lot of people who feel they have an identity only when they’re talking about their problems. That way, they exist, because their problems are linked to what they judge to be their history.”
“you discover that your old “I,” along with everything you ever learned, is absolutely no use at all in the face of those new challenges, and you begin to realize that buried deep in your unconscious mind there is someone much more interesting and adventurous and more open to the world and to new experiences.”
“At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny.”
“Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.”
“Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely”.”
“I learned something recently: 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...”
“Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India, they use the word ‘karma,’ for lack of any better term. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”
“The desert takes our dreams away from us, and they don't always return. We know that, and we are used to it. Those who don't return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become part of everything... They become the Soul of the World.”
“What we aim to do is calm the spirit and get in touch with the source from which everything comes, removing any trace of malice or egotism. If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you’ll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.”
“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.”
“Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. … It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“That is how I would have acted before my accident, but now my personal history had become unimportant. It had stopped being history and was once more becoming a legend, a search, an adventure, a journey into and away from myself. I was once more in a time which the things around me were changing and that is how I wanted it to be for the rest of my days.”
“I am not a foreigner, because I haven’t been praying to return safely home. I haven’t wasted my time imagining my house, my desk, my side of the bed. I am not a foreigner, because we are all traveling, we are all full of the same questions, the same tiredness, the same fears, the same selfishness, and the same generosity. I am not a foreigner, because, when I asked, I received.”
“Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station. And what you’re doing now isn’t traveling, it’s just changing countries, which is completely different Understand what is going on inside you and you will understand what is going on inside everyone else.”
“Whenever I refused to follow my fate, something very hard to bear would happen in my life. Tragedy always brings about radical change in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle: loss. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been; it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.”
“I love you like a river that understands that it must learn to flow differently over waterfalls and to rest in the shallows. I love you because we are all born in the same place, at the same source, which keeps us provided with a constant supply of water. And so, when we feel weak, all we have to do is wait a little. The spring returns, and the winter snows melt and fill us with new energy.”
“We learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that’s of no use to the present. The present has its challenges, its good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with past experiences. It’s always new.”
“Look me in the eye and never forget what I'm about to tell you. There are only two prohibitions, one according to man's law, the other according to God's. Never force a sexual relationship on anyone, because that is considered to be rape. And never have sexual relations with children, because that is the worst of all sins. Apart from that, you're free. There's always someone who wants exactly what you want.”
“The parents always insisted on telling their child that their secret friends didn't exist — perhaps because they had forgotten that they too had spoken to their angel at one time. Or, who knows, perhaps they thought they lived in a world where there was no longer any place for angels. Disenchanted, the angels had returned to God's side, knowing that they could no longer impose their presence.”
“In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that 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.”
“Love is much like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current. For when those walls come down, then love takes over, and it no longer matters what is possible or impossible; it doesn't even matter whether we can keep the loved one at our side. To love is to lose control.”
“I receive your love, and I give you mine. Not the love of a man for a woman, not the love of a father for a child, not the love of God for his creatures, but a love with no name and no explanation, like a river that cannot explain why it follows a particular course but simply flows onward. A love that asks for nothing and gives nothing in return; it is simply there. I will never be yours, and you will never be mine; nevertheless, I can honestly say: I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“You think that you exist because you’re unhappy. Other people exist merely as a function of their problems and spend all their time talking compulsively about their children, their wives and husbands, school, work, friends. They never stop to think: I’m here. I am the result of everything that happened and will happen, but I’m here. If I did something wrong, I can put it right or at least ask forgiveness. If I did something right, that leaves me happier and more connected with the now”.”
“A disciple asked Hejasi:
- I want to know what is the most funny thing about human beings.
Hejasi said:
- That they always think crooked: they’re in a hurry to grow, then lament their lost childhood, and soon lose the money they need to keep their health.
"They are so anxious about the future, that they neglect the present, and thus live in neither the present nor the future."
"They live as if they were never going to die, and die as if they had never lived."
”
- I want to know what is the most funny thing about human beings.
Hejasi said:
- That they always think crooked: they’re in a hurry to grow, then lament their lost childhood, and soon lose the money they need to keep their health.
"They are so anxious about the future, that they neglect the present, and thus live in neither the present nor the future."
"They live as if they were never going to die, and die as if they had never lived."
”
“Athena's great problem was that she was a woman of the twenty-second century living in the twenty-first, and making no secret of the fact, either. Did she pay a price? She certainly did. But she would have paid a still higher price if she had repressed her natural exuberance. She would have been bitter, frustrated, always concerned about "what other people might think," always saying, "I'll just sort these things out, then I'll devote myself to my dream," always complaining "that the conditions are never quite right."”
“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe, which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul; don’t visit your past. The Universe goes through many mutations and carries the past with it. We call each of those mutations a ‘life,’ but just as the cells in your body change and yet you remain the same, so time does not pass, it merely changes.”
“My aim is to understand love. I know how alive I felt when I was in love, and I know that everything I have now, however interesting it might seem, doesn't really excited me.
But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. … Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart.”
But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. … Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart.”
“Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms. For example, I can’t see who is in the next carriage, but it contains people traveling in the same time as me, as you, as everyone. The fact that we can’t speak to them or know what’s going on in that other carriage is completely irrelevant. They are there. So what we call ‘life’ is a train with many carriages. Sometimes we’re in one, sometimes we’re in another, and sometimes we cross between them, when we dream or allow ourselves to be swept away by the extraordinary.”
“Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to reach out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.
And to save us.”
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.
And to save us.”
“In magic—and in life—there is only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. “Time” doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.”
“The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don't care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don't care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don't want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they're throwing the dice — and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck.
The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy — depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free.”
The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy — depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free.”
“She believed herself to be completely normal. Two very simple reasons lay behind her decision to die, and she was sure that, were she to leave a note explaining, many people would agree with her.
The first reason: everything in her life was the same and, once her youth was gone, it would be downhill all the way, with old age beginning to leave irreversible marks, the onset of illness, the departure of friends. She would gain nothing by continuing to live; indeed, the likelihood of suffering only increased. The second reason was more philosophical: Veronika read the newspapers, watched TV, and she was aware of what was going on in the world. Everything was wrong, and she had no way of putting things right — that gave her a sense of complete powerlessness.”
The first reason: everything in her life was the same and, once her youth was gone, it would be downhill all the way, with old age beginning to leave irreversible marks, the onset of illness, the departure of friends. She would gain nothing by continuing to live; indeed, the likelihood of suffering only increased. The second reason was more philosophical: Veronika read the newspapers, watched TV, and she was aware of what was going on in the world. Everything was wrong, and she had no way of putting things right — that gave her a sense of complete powerlessness.”
“You are what you believe yourself to be.
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.
Believe.”
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.
Believe.”
“Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: “I made some mistakes, but I wasn’t a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.” However, there’s no need to anticipate my particular hell and keep going over and over the fact that I can make no further progress in what I understand to be my “Spiritual Quest.” It’s enough that I keep trying. Even those who didn’t do all they could have done have already been forgiven; they had their punishment while they were alive by being unhappy when they could have been living in peace and harmony. We are all redeemed and free to follow the path that has no beginning and will have no end.”
“You have to take risks … We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist — that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”
“Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons. Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light.
Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties.
Every Warrior of the Light has said "yes" when he wanted to say "no."
Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
Then, accepting the help of God and of God's signs, he allows his personal legend to guide him toward the tasks that life has reserved for him.
On some nights, he has nowhere to sleep, on others he suffers from insomnia. "That's just how it is," thinks the warrior. "I was the one who chose to walk this path."
In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.”
Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties.
Every Warrior of the Light has said "yes" when he wanted to say "no."
Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
Then, accepting the help of God and of God's signs, he allows his personal legend to guide him toward the tasks that life has reserved for him.
On some nights, he has nowhere to sleep, on others he suffers from insomnia. "That's just how it is," thinks the warrior. "I was the one who chose to walk this path."
In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.”
Paulo Coelho Quotes by Topic
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Paulo Coelho on Love 24 quotes
View all 24 quotes on Love →Paulo Coelho on Happiness 6 quotes
View all 6 quotes on Happiness →Paulo Coelho on World Soul 6 quotes
“And when people think of reincarnation, they always come up against a very difficult question: if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of Earth, and now there are so many, where did all those new souls come from?”
Paulo Coelho on Warrior 5 quotes
View all 5 quotes on Warrior →Paulo Coelho on Religious views on love 3 quotes
“We must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules.”
Quotes About Paulo Coelho
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Paulo Coelho from others.
(15 July 2013) on Paulo Coelho
Dana Goodyear on Paulo Coelho
“Coelho’s books include eight novels, two memoirs, several collections of occasional writing, a volume of quotations, and “Warrior of the Light: A Manual,” a book of platitudes. They have sold nearly a hundred million copies. Bellboys, waitresses, and policemen recognize his face; in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton was photographed carrying a copy of “The Alchemist.” In his writings, Coelho, who is Catholic—though he says he does not “kiss the hand of the Pope, that’s for sure”—presents himself as a searcher and a sage, a hybrid of Carlos Castaneda and Kahlil Gibran. His cosmology, which includes angels and devils, signs, omens, and, for each person, a destiny called his Personal Legend, promises that whatever is sought—love, money, inspiration—can be readily attained. Quotidian events, like weather and coincidence, he sees as miraculous.”
Malala Yousafzai on Paulo Coelho
“The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I like it because it is hopeful and inspiring. It tells the story of a boy who embarks on a journey to find a treasure, but as he goes along, he learns from every part of his journey and every person he meets. In the end, he finds his treasure in a very interesting place. His story tells you that you should believe in yourself and continue your journey.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Paulo Coelho
About Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho de Souza (IPA: ˈpau̯lu ˈko̯eʎu) (born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian poet and writer.