Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Paulo Coelho is
* Messenger of Peace for the United Nations
* Ambassador of European Union for Intercultural Dialogue
* Member of the Board of the Shimon Peres Institute for Peace
* UNESCO special counsellor for “Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences
*The author of The Alchemist
This is one book that makes me want to be able to read Portuguese. To reach the spirit of this book and communicate with it personally. I call this book my soulmate. It speaks to me directly. It echoes my personal philosophy. It sustains my optimism. It reaffirms my beliefs.
Millions have read this book since its publications and thousands of book reviews have been written. There is no need to go into another review or preempt any other future readers' encounter with it. Everyone should discover The Alchemist for themselves. Instead, I share the following quotes:
A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure.
Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.
Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
There is only one way to learn. It's through action.
No one fails to suffer the consequences of everything under the sun.
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.
It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the
fear of failure.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding 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.
Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.
Love is the pure language of the world...a language without words…the one true language of the universe. It requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time.
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.
Without love, dreams would have no meaning.
No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world
turns out indeed to be a threatening place.
If you can concentrate on the present, you'll be a happy man…the secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.
The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect.
This natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise.
Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
Everything has been written by the same hand.
All things are one.
This is a special movie. All the awards it has received confirmed the fact. It is the simple sincerity that moves me. The young actress (I ferevently hope she may never be ruined by commercial productions!) has a rare innocence beauty of spirit that brought the movie to life for me.
