Paulo Coelho Quotes - Page 10

What's the world's greatest lie?... It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.
Paulo Coelho
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
Paulo Coelho
If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.
Paulo Coelho
Maktub" (It is written.)
Paulo Coelho
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.
Paulo Coelho
If I must fall, may it be from a high place.
Paulo Coelho
My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty of life once more. It's happened before, it will happen again, I'm sure. When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive--I'll find love again.
Paulo Coelho
It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory
Paulo Coelho
I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.
Paulo Coelho
Collective madness is called sanity ..
Paulo Coelho
I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.
Paulo Coelho
Ester asked why people are sad."That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.
Paulo Coelho
Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.
Paulo Coelho
I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.
Paulo Coelho
Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.
Paulo Coelho
How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.
Paulo Coelho
Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.
Paulo Coelho
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pan, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.
Paulo Coelho
No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.
Paulo Coelho
Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.
Paulo Coelho
You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?
Paulo Coelho
It's not my story anymore: whenever I speak about the past now, I feel as if I were talking about something that has nothing to do with me. All that remains in the present are the voice, the presence, and the importance of fulfilling my mission. I don't regret difficulties I experienced; I think they helped me to become the person I am today, I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training; he doesn't remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right.
Paulo Coelho
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
Paulo Coelho
When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
Paulo Coelho
In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.
Paulo Coelho
Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don't give the matter much thought. Others make plans: I'm going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they're busy doing that, they're like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and they think that's the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don't know they carry in their soul. Are you happy?
Paulo Coelho
When we set out on the path, we always have a fairly clear idea of what we hope to find. Women are generally seeking their Soul Mate, and men looking for Power. Neither party is really interested in learning. They simply want to reach the thing they have set as their goal.
Paulo Coelho
It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and,when the wind turns against us,always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds,or to blame someone else for our mistakes.
Paulo Coelho
Hide your craziness behind a beautiful smile. That's all you need.
Paulo Coelho
Life moves very fast. It rushes from Heaven to Hell in a matter of seconds.
Paulo Coelho
Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.
Paulo Coelho
When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.
Paulo Coelho
Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes.
Paulo Coelho
She didn't need to understand the meaning of life; it was enough to find someone who did, and then fall asleep in his arms and sleep as a child sleeps, knowing that someone stronger than you is protecting you from all evil and all danger
Paulo Coelho
Love simply is.
Paulo Coelho
In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the pricesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.
Paulo Coelho
I am surprised how difficult for people is to say "I love you". They only say the three magic words when they are sure they will hear "I love you too" back. C'mon! Spread the energy of love without expecting anything! Cowards are incapable of expressing love; it is the prerogative of the brave
Paulo Coelho
Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
Paulo Coelho
Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.
Paulo Coelho
Wait. This was the first lesson I had learned about love. The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways -- and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don't know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.
Paulo Coelho
I’ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I’m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months’ time, I’ll be far away and he’ll be just a memory, but I couldn’t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit… Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes directions.
Paulo Coelho
It's risky, falling in love.""I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours."But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love.""What a horrible way to put it," he said.
Paulo Coelho
Marie, let’s suppose that two firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterwards, when they emerge and go over to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man’s face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face? That’s a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course.’ No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him. And, vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I’d better have a wash.’ What are you trying to say?’ I’m saying that, during the time I spent in the hospital, I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me thinking that they were worse than they were. Please, don’t let that happen to you.
Paulo Coelho
We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to.Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor.Because they never understand us, but they never give up.Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves.Because they come from little boys.Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women.Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we’re happy.Because they elevate sports to religion.Because they’re never afraid of the dark.Because they don’t care how they look or if they age.Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything.Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels.Because they’re always ready for sex.Because they’re like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations.Because they’re afraid to go bald.Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say.Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry.Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human.Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end.Because they always finish the food on their plate.Because they are brave in front of insects and mice.Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots.Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between.Because for them there’s no such thing as too much adrenaline.Because when all is said and done, they can’t live without us, no matter how hard they try.Because they’re truly as simple as they claim to be.Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we’re there to catch them.Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it.Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads.Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say.Because they don’t lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size.Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don’t want them to.Because when we say “I love you” they ask for an explanation.
Paulo Coelho
I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Paulo Coelho
What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.
Paulo Coelho
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
Paulo Coelho
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
Paulo Coelho
Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.
Paulo Coelho
When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.
Paulo Coelho
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
Paulo Coelho
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paulo Coelho
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Paulo Coelho
If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.
Paulo Coelho
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.
Paulo Coelho
This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.
Paulo Coelho
When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.
Paulo Coelho
But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.
Paulo Coelho
I've been in love before, it's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things.You think about the person you love for two minutes then forget them for three hours. But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love."- By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Paulo Coelho
In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.
Paulo Coelho