The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

·        The world’s greatest lie? : That at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

·        Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. “At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything that 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”.

·        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 universe. It’s your mission on earth.

·         “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it”.

·        People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.

·        People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being, Maybe that’s why they give up on it so early, too. But that’s the way it is.

·        God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you.

·        I’m like everyone else – I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.

·        You must always know what it is that you want !

·        Every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so.

·        “Maktub”  - “It is written”.

·        There was a language in the world that everyone understood. It is the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of search for something believed in and desired.

·        Everything in life is an omen. There is a universal language, understood by everybody but already forgotten.

·        The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being.

·        Intuition is really a sudden immersion of soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.

·        People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. 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.

 ·        Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive …. And it ahs a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.

 ·        Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in my present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you will be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in desert, that there are stars in the heaven. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.

 ·        On liquor: It is not what enters men’s mouth that’s evil, it’s what comes out of their mouths that is.

 ·        You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love …. The love that speaks the language of the World.

 ·        Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.

·        It is not often that money saves a person’s life.

 ·        There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

 ·        When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

 ·        Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

 ·        No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of world. And normally he doesn’t know it.

The Secret of Happiness (A little story from Alchemist)

 A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.

          Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.

          The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.

          “ ‘Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something’, said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. ‘As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.’

          “The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

          “ ‘Well,’ asked the wise man, ‘did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

          “The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“ ‘Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,’ said the wise man. ‘You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.’

          “Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceiling and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

          “ ‘But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?’ asked the wise man.

          “Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

          “ ‘Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,’ said the wisest of the wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.’”