Quotes from Paulo Coelho

There are four obstacles. First: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. The second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. The third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. The fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

Only those who find life, find treasures.

So, a warrior of the light must be prepared to be patient at difficult times, and know that the Universe is conspiring in his favor, even if he does not understand how.

Miracles only happen if you believe in miracles.

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.

Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn't know why life is being unfair to it.

PAIN was no longer a cause of suffering, but a source of pleasure, Because they were redeeming humanity from its sins. Pain becomes joy, the meaning of life, pleasure..

when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years w/out feeling anything new. Then, when a door opens - a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with..

Living is making decisions and dealing with the consequences.

The Warrior of the Light knows that it is impossible to live in a state of complete relaxation. He has learned from the archer that, in order to shoot his arrow any distance, he must hold the bow taut. He has learned from the stars that only an inner explosion allows them to shine. The Warrior notices that when a horse is about to jump over a fence, it tenses all its muscles. But he never confuses tension with anxiety.

As he looked up at the clouds or down at the precipice, he realized that this woman was the most important thing in his life; that she was the explanation, the sole reason for the existence of those rocks, that sky, that winter. If she were not there with him, it wouldn't matter if all the angels of heaven came flying down to comfort him--Paradise would make no sense.

There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you only need to distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting.

Why do they make things so complicated? So that those who have the responsibility for understanding can understand., he said. Imagine if everyone went around transforming lead into gold. Gold would lose its value. It's those who are persistent, and willing to study things deeply, who achieve the Master Work.

When we venture in that unfamiliar sea, we trust blindly in those who guide us, believing that they know more than we do.

Normality is merely a matter of consensus; that is, a lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right.

Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people - preferably our parents, our spouses or our children - for our failure to realise our dreams.

The present moment, though, is outside of time, it's Eternity. In India they use the word "karma" for lack of any better term. But it's a concept that's rarely given a proper explanation. 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.

When we feel weak, all we have to do is wait a little while. The spring returns and the winter snows melt and fill us with new energy.

intuition is really a sudden immersion of the 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.

When you are moving toward an objective, said Petrus, 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.

Sometimes, we need to be strangers to ourselves. Then the hidden light in our soul will illuminate what we need to see.

Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness.

But every day we meet someone whose behavior suddenly changes from one moment to the next. And we wonder: what happened to this person I thought I knew? Why is he acting so aggressively? Is it stress at work? And then the next day the person is normal again. You're relieved, but soon after the rug is pulled out from under you when you least expect it. And this time, instead of asking what's wrong with this person, you wonder what you did wrong.