Paulo Coelho Quotes

We aren’t who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don’t want to disappoint anyone; we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived.

The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort

I learned something recently: our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives...

People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it all to remain the same.

For the first time, I will smile without feeling guilty, because joy is not a sin... For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue.

Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.

Nothing in this world happens by chance.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

Sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years without feeling new. Then, when a door opens - a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with.

The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.

Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.

We always have a tendency to see those things that do not exist and to be blind to the great lessons that are right there before our eyes.

You are what you believe yourself to be

When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.

Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.