Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho de Souzais a Brazilian lyricist and novelist. He is the recipient of numerous international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. His novel The Alchemist has been translated into 80 languages. The author has sold over 200 million copies worldwide and is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author...
NationalityBrazilian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 August 1947
CityRio de Janeiro, Brazil
CountryBrazil
Every moment of searching is a moment of encounter.
What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.
I wept because I was re-experiencing the enthusiasm of my childhood; I was once again a child, and nothing in the world could cause me harm.
How many of us will be saved the pain of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment to the next? I don't just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might survive a day, a week, a few years, but we're all condemned to lose. Our body remains alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive the mortal blow. The perfect crime - for we don't know who murdered our joy, what their motives were, or where the guilty parties are to be found...they too are the victims of the reality they created.
The soil needs the seed and the seed needs the soil. The one only has meaning with the other. It is the same thing with human beings. When male knowledge joins with female transformation, then the great magical union is created, and its name is wisdom. Wisdom means both to know and to transform.
People no longer try to decipher the mystery of life but choose instead to be a part of it.
We are not worshipping anyone or anything, we are simply communing with creation.
No one places her dreams in the hands of those who might destroy them.
About the nature of human beings. I discovered that confronted by temptation, we will always fall. Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil.
What they forget is that, from Ancient Greece on, the people who returned from battle were either dead on their shields or stronger, despite and because of their scars.
It isn't the desire to abide by the law that makes everyone behave as society requires, but the fear of punishment. Each one of us carries a gallows inside us.
If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it's the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.
Remember, the first road to God is prayer, the second is joy.
Death frees from the fear of dying