Paulo Coelho, 1987
The path to knowledge is a path that’s open to
everyone, to the common people.
(Knowledge) can be discovered by anyone who is willing
to seek them out, with patience and perspicacity, among lessons that life
itself teaches us.
When you travel, you experience, in a very practical
way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations.
When you are moving toward an objective, it is very
important to pay attention to the road. It is the road that teaches us the best
way to get there, and the road enriches us as we walk its length.
The same thing when you have an objective in life. It
will turn out to be better or worse depending on the route you choose to reach
it and the way you negotiate that route.
Time isn’t something that always proceeds at the same
pace. It is we who determine how fast time passes.
Try to find pleasure in a speed that you’re not used
to. Changing the way you do routine things allow a new person to grow inside of
you. You’re the one who must decide how you handle it.
Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a
meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and
our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t our soul
dies.
The good fight is the one that’s fought in the name of
our dreams. When we’re young and our dreams first explode inside us with all of
their force, we are very courageous, but we haven’t yet learned how to fight.
With great effort, we learn how to fight, but by then we no longer have the
courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within.
We become our worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too
difficult to realize, or the result of our not having known enough about life.
We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight.
The first symptom of the process of killing our dreams
is the lack of time. The busiest people always have time enough to do
everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the
little amount of work they are required to do.
The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in
our certainties. We begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in
asking so little of life.
The third symptom of the passing of our dreams is
peace. We cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. We think
of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we
seek for personal and professional achievements.
When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go
through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within
us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then
we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves.
We always know which is the best road to follow, but
we follow only the road that we have become accustomed to.
No man is an island, we need help, we need friends and
when the friends aren’t nearby, we have to turn solitude into our main weapon.
We need the help of everything around us in order to take the necessary steps
toward our goal. Everything has to be a personal manifestation of our will. If
we don’t understand that, we become arrogant warriors. And our arrogance will
defeat us in the end, because we will be so sure of ourselves that we won’t see
the pitfalls there on the field of battle.
People don’t like to ask too much of life because they
are afraid they will be defeated. But if someone wants to fight the good fight,
the person must view the world as if it were a marvelous treasure waiting to be
discovered and won.
Conversation is useful when people want to convince
themselves that what they’re saying is right.
We are always trying to convert people to a belief in
our own explanation of the universe. We think that the more people there are
who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the
truth. But it doesn’t work that way at all.
Fans who lack the faith can make a team lose a game it
is already winning.
A manifestation of eros, the feeling of love that
exists between two people.
What god had provided to humans as their noblest
sentiment would become a source of hatred and destructiveness.
No one can escape eros. Everyone needs its prescence,
despite the fact that many times, eros makes us feel apart from the world,
trapped in our solitude.
Philos is love in the form of friendship. When the
flame of eros stops burning, it is philos that keeps a couple together.
Do something relaxing prior to making an important
decision in your life.
I don’t think you look to love as a means to a
comfortable retirement.
Enthusiasm is agape directed at a particular idea or a
specific thing. When we love and believe
from the bottom of our heart, we feel ourselves to be stronger than anyone in
the world, and we feel a serenity that is based on the certainty that nothing
can shake our faith.
Enthusiasm carries us toward our goal.
We lose our enthusiasm because of the small and
unavoidable defeats we suffer during the good fight. We let it dribble through
our fingers; we do this without recognizing that we are letting the true
meaning of our lives escapes us. We blame the world for our boredom and for our
losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting
power to diminish.
Don’t be cruel with yourself. Be kind, accept the
praise that you deserve.
Don’t start creating fantasies in a world that is
already extraordinary.
A threat leads to nothing if it is not accepted.
Both attacking and fleeing are part of the fight. What
isn’t part of the fight is becoming paralyzed by fear.
With an awareness of death, they would be able to be
even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then
they would have nothing to lose – for death is inevitable.
Death is our constant companion, and it is death that
gives each person’s life its true meaning.
(The things going on around us) were the things,
rather than the stars or wisdom, that told me I was alive.
You wanted to be brave, when it was enough to have
been intelligent.
Wisdom has value only if it helps us to overcome some
obstacle. A hammer would make no sense in the world if there were no nails to
be driven.
A disciple can never imitate his guide’s steps.
Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it
possible for yourself.
I had to do it all. I, alone, had to win my victory.
Every one of us has the flame of madness burning
inside and it is fed by agape. Agape is grander than our ordinary human
concepts, and everyone thirsts for it.
In order for agape to flourish, I must not be afraid
to change my life. If I did not (like what I’m doing), there was always the
time for a change. If I allowed change to occur, I would be transforming myself
into a fertile field and allowing the Creative Imagination to sow its seeds in
me.
The most difficult moment in a person’s life – when
the person witnesses the good fight and is unable to change and join the
battle. When this happens, knowledge turns against the person who holds it.
An act of will (to change), a concrete desire to do
battle against everything that is unsatisfying in one’s everyday life.
The only way to make the right decision is to know
what the wrong decision is. You have to examine the other path, without fear
and without being morbid, and then decide.
Our enemy always represents our weaker side. Our enemy
joins the battle only because he knows that he can hurt us. During the fight,
we always try to protect our weak spot, so the enemy strikes at the unguarded
side. And we wind up defeated because we allow what should never be allowed: we
let the enemy choose how the battle will be waged.
Going to a war is not a sin, it is an act of love. The
enemy develops us and sharpens us.
Our enemy is part of agape, there to test our grip,
our will, and our handling of the sword. He was placed in our lives – and we in
his – with a purpose.
We can always learn something from defeat; if we flee,
all we do is declare that our enemy has won.
The person who does not know how to listen will never
hear the advice that life offers us all the time. And only the person who
listens to the sounds of the moment is able to make the right decisions.
People who consider themselves to be wise are often
indecisive when command is called for and rebellious when they are called upon
to obey. They are ashamed to give orders and consider it dishonorable to
receive them. Don’t ever be that way.
You can learn only through teaching. Life teaches us
lessons every minute, and the secret is to accept that only in our daily lives
can we show ourselves to be as wise and as powerful. But we become aware of
this only when we are forced to teach others and to participate in adventures.
The search for happiness is a personal search and not
a model we can pass on to others.
