Excerpts from "The Alchemist"

I have been reading a book "The Alchemist" - by Paulo Coelho, which is about realizing one's Personal Legend, believing in it as well as pursuing it.
I would like to share few excerpts from this book which I felt touchy.

-It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

-When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.

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

-One need not fear the unknown if one is capable of achieving what one needs and wants.

-When one is in love, things begin to make even more sense.

-The fear of suffering is worse than 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.

-In addition to realizing one's dreams, one should also master the lessons which he has learned as he has moved towards that dream.

-Every search begins with a beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested.

-Anyone who interferes with the Personal Legend of another thing will never discover his own.

-One should not give in to his fears...If he does so; he won't be able to talk to his heart.

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

-Everything that happens once can never happen again; but everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

-Never stop dreaming.

-Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way.

-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 out lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.

-Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything because it's all written there.

-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…Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.

-Everything has been written by the same hand.

-All things are one.

-Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.

-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.

-There is only one way to learn. It's through action.

-Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.

-This natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise.

-The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect.

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

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

-No one fails to suffer the consequences of everything under the sun.

-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.

-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.

-Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.

-The boy reached through to the Soul of the World and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.

-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.

-A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure.

-We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

-We make a lot of detours in achieving our personal goal, but we should always be heading for the same destination.