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
Stay a verb—don’t become a noun.
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Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will.
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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.
Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening.
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. . . it is almost always the case that whatever has wounded you will also be instrumental in your healing.
If you bring forth what is within you it will save you. If you do not, it will destroy you.
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Respect the fact that all you do and are now has evolved for a good reason and serves an important purpose.
It is only the mature person—the man or woman who is not conditioned by compulsive likes and dislikes, habits and opinions—who is really free in life. Such people are truly spontaneous.
Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it . . . the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way. . . .
Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair.