The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

by Paulo Coelho

But when he thought to complain about the burden of its weight, he remembered that, because he had the jacket, he had withstood the cold of the dawn. We have to be prepared for change, he thought, and he was grateful for the jacket’s weight and warmth. The jacket had a purpose, and so did the boy.

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting,

Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

“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. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”

when each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.

“‘Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,’ said the wisest of wise men. ‘The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.’”

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,”

“Learn to recognize omens, and follow them,”

It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.

Tangier was no longer a strange city, and he felt that, just as he had conquered this place, he could conquer the world.

When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

no matter how many detours and adjustments it made, the caravan moved toward the same compass point. Once obstacles were overcome, it returned to its course, sighting on a star that indicated the location of the oasis.

people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.

“Everyone has his or her own way of learning things,” he said to himself. “His way isn’t the same as mine, nor mine as his.

If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man.

“Don’t be impatient,”

“Tomorrow, sell your camel and buy a horse. Camels are traitorous: they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die. But horses tire bit by bit. You always know how much you can ask of them, and when it is that they are about to die.”

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams,

Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

“When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

I’m an old, superstitious Arab, and I believe in our proverbs. There’s one that says, ‘Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’”