Aleph

by Paulo Coelho

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.”

“You’re not here anymore. You’ve got to leave in order to return to the present.”

Don’t betray the grace that was bestowed on you. Understand what is going on inside you and you will understand what is going on inside everyone else. Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace. I came with a sword.”

To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.

Apart from monks in the Himalayas and saints in the deserts, I think we all have these vengeful feelings because they’re an essential part of the human condition. We shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly.

If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad

about someone else, you’ll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.”

If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely.”

which strikes me as both amusing and absurd. She

love is the only thing that will save us, independent of any mistakes we may make.

Time neither moves nor is stationary. Time changes. We occupy one point in that constantly mutating time—our Aleph.

“We learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that’s of no use to the present. The present has its challenges, its

good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be

grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with pas...

“Is it possible to fix love and make it stand still in time? Well, we can try, but that would turn our lives into a hell. I haven’t been married for more than twenty years to the same person, because neither she nor I have remained the same. That’s why our relationship is more alive than ever. I don’t expect her to behave as she did when we first met. Nor does she want me to be the person I was when I found her. Love is beyond time, or, rather, love is both time and space, but all focused on one single constantly evolving point—the Aleph.”

“We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be.

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined.

“There’s nothing worse than being rejected. Your light finds the light of another soul, and you think that the windows will open, the sun will pour in, and all your old wounds will finally heal. Then, suddenly, none of that happens. Perhaps I’m paying the price for all those men I hurt.”

“I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return, Of giving, even when I have nothing, Of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties, Of holding out my hand, even when utterly alone and abandoned, Of drying my tears, even while I weep, Of believing, even when no one believes in me.”

True wisdom means respecting the simple things we do, for they can take us where we need to go.”

we are constantly destroying and rebuilding ourselves and who we are.

The trouble with words is that they give us the illusory sense that we are making ourselves understood as well as understanding what others are saying. However, when we turn around and come face-to-face with our destiny, we discover that words are not enough. I

I realized a long time ago that a warrior in search of his dream must take his inspiration from what he actually does and not from what he imagines himself doing.

The magical and the extraordinary are with me and with everyone in the Universe all the time, but sometimes we forget and need to be reminded, even if we have to cross the largest continent in the world from one side to the other. We return laden with treasures that might end up getting buried again, and then we will have to set off once more in search of them. That’s what makes life interesting—believing in treasures and in miracles.