The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

by Paulo Coelho

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.

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised. “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.”

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve 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.’”

And, as he smothered the coals in the hookah, he told the boy that he could begin to sell tea in the crystal glasses. Sometimes, there’s just no way to hold back the river.

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.

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.

“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love … the love that speaks the Language of 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.”

I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

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

“That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

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