Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author of internationally bestselling inspirational stories of spiritual- and self-awakening. His best-known work, The Alchemist, has been translated into over sixty-five languages.
CLEAR ALL
'Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’
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If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
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Anyone who has made us suffer is undoubtedly suffering too.
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Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world.
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Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.
Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.