The Alchemist

by Paulo Coelho

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

It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them. And

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.

“Personal Legend”

“It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone,

“People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being,”

“Maybe that’s why they give up on it so early, too. But that’s the way it is.”

“If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.”

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.

‘The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.’”

the old man had said about offering something you didn’t even have yet.

“I’m like everyone else—I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.”

“It’s called the principle of favorability, beginner’s

luck. Because life wants you

to achieve your Persona...

“You must always know what it is that you want,” the old king had said.

“Maktub,”

it would be something like ‘It is written.’”

“Never stop dreaming,” the old king had said. “Follow the omens.”

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

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.

The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being,

Creatures like the sheep, that are used to traveling, know about moving on.”

“Maktub,”

it is written

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

Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.”

The camel driver had asked what the circumstances were under which God would allow him to see the future. “Only when he, himself, reveals it. And God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for only one reason: it’s a future that was written so as to be altered.”

to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every

“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend.

“My heart is a traitor,”

“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”

“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”

“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, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

“Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,” his heart said. “We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate.

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

before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’

“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.”

“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, and even men can turn themselves into the wind. As long as the wind helps, of course.”

“This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold.

‘Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’”