The Alchemist
Quotes from the Book
Love is an act of faith & its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling & emotion because if we try to decipher it & understand it, the magic disappears.
When we don't know where life is taking us, we are never lost.
So you must learn to follow your destiny, whatever it may be, with joy. As flowers grow, they show off their beauty and are appreciated by all; then, after they die, they leave their seeds so that others may continue God’s work.
Never fall in love. Love is a poison. Once you fall in love, you lose control over your life --- your heart and mind belong to someone else. Your existence is threatened. You start to do everything to hold on to your loved one and lose all sense of danger. Love, that inexplicable and dangerous thing, sweeps everything you are form the face of the earth and, in its place, leaves only what your beloved wants you to be. - Madame Guimet
These seeds will always be tulips, even if at the moment you cannot tell them apart from other flowers. They will never turn into roses or sunflowers, no matter how much they might desire to. And if they try to deny their own existence, they will live life bitter and die.
Know what you want and try to go beyond your own expectations....set a very high goal, one that will be difficult to achieve. Because that is an artist's mission: to go beyond one's limits. An artist who desires very little and achieves it has failed in life.
Flowers teach us that nothing is permanent: not their beauty, not even the fact that they will inevitably wilt, because they will still give new seeds. Remember this when you feel joy, pain, or sadness. Everything passes, grows old, dies, and is reborn.
Sin was not created by God; it was created by us when we tried to transform what was inevitable into something subjective. We ceased to see the whole and came to see just one part; and that part is loaded with guilt, rules, good versus evil, and each side thinking it’s right.
In a war, the first casualty is human dignity.
Even the tallest trees are able to grow from tiny seeds like these. Remember this, and try not to rush time.
You are born, go to school, and attend university in search of a husband. You get married - even if he is the worse man in the world - just so that others can't say no one wants you. You have children, grow old, and spend the end of your days watching passersby from a chair on the sidewalk, pretending to know everything about life yet unable to silence the voice in your heart that says: "You could try something else.
Love does not obey anyone and will betray those who try to decipher its mystery.
The body tires easily, but the spirit is always free and will help us get out, one day, from this infernal cycle of repeating the same mistakes every generation. Although
Every moment should be lived with feeling and emotion because if we try to decipher it and understand it, the magic disappears. We
I was an exotic bird traversing an earth ravaged by humanity’s poverty of spirit. I
I understand what the Greeks meant by this: Love is an act of faith and its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling and emotion because if we try to decipher it and understand it, the magic disappears.
Liars...are people who seek popularity and recognition. Even when faced with truth, they always find a way to escape, coldly repeating what had just been said or blaming the accuser of speaking untruths.
...it is one thing to get used to something, another to be satisfied.
(On the myth of Eros) Each time I recall this myth, I wonder: Are we never to be able to see the true face of love? And I understand what the Greeks meant by this: Love is an act of faith and its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling and emotion because if we try to decipher it and understand it, the magic disappears.
We are bound to our lives, to our pasts, to the laws of what we consider right or wrong, and suddenly, everything changes. We
Memories bring with them a devil called melancholy—oh, cruel demon that I cannot escape. Hearing
Pianos should never go out of tune. The true sin is something different than what we’ve been taught; the true sin is living so far removed from absolute harmony. That is more powerful than the truths and lies we tell every day. I
men love to explain things, and they have opinions on everything.
We all know I won't be killed because of this stupid allegation of espionage, but because I decided to be who I always dreamed. And the price of a dream is always high.
And he returned to his books, which had never asked him for anything he could not provide. That
About Paulo Coelho
About the book
In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, best-selling author of The Alchemist and Adultery, brings to life one of history's most enigmatic women: Mata Hari.
HER ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN
When Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless. Within months she was the most celebrated woman in the city.
As a dancer, she shocked and delighted audiences; as a courtesan, she bewitched the era’s richest and most powerful men.
But as paranoia consumed a country at war, Mata Hari’s lifestyle brought her under suspicion. In 1917, she was arrested in her hotel room on the Champs Elysees, and accused of espionage.
Told in Mata Hari’s voice through her final letter, The Spy is the unforgettable story of a woman who dared to defy convention and who paid the ultimate price.
Book details
- First published
- 2017
- Author
- Paulo Coelho
- Genre
- Historical
- Goodreads rating
- 3.38 (46k ratings)
The buzz
- The Washington PostReview in The Washington Postprofessional review (via Book Marks)
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