Aphorisms by Paulo Coelho

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It's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

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There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. You are worth it.

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Perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings.

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Writing os one of the most solitary activities in the world. Once every two years, I sit in front of my computer, I observe my soul's unknown ocean and I see a few islands - ideas which are developing and that are ready to be explored. And so I take my boat - its name is "Word" - and I choose to sail towards the closest of them. On the journey, I come across currents, winds and storms, but I go on rowing, growing more tired. I am conscious of being off route, of not having on the horizon the island I wanted to reach anymore. All the same there is no way of going back: I have to continue anyway, or I shall find myself lost amidst the ocean. At that moment a series of terrifying images cross my mind: I that spend the rest of my life talking of previous success, or sourly crticizing new writers for the simple fact of not having the courage of publishing any new material. But wasn't my dream that of being a writer? Therefore I must go on creating sentences, paragraphs, chapters and Wrtiting to exhaustion, without letting myself be paralized by success, by defeat, by traps along the way.
Shaken by such absurd thoughts, I find within myself a strength and courage of which I ignored the existence: they help me to adventure to the boundless side of my soul. I let myself be carried by the currents and I end up anchoring my boat in the proximity of the island to where I have been taken. I spend days and nights wrtiting what I see, asking myself why am I acting this way, repeating to myself every moment why this effort has become useless, that I have no nedd to prove anything to anyone, that I have already obtained what I wanted and a lot more of what I could possibly dream of.

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She fills everything. She is the only reason I am alive. I look around, I prepare myself for
the talk I am to give, and I understand why I braved the snow, the traffic jams, and the ice on the roads: in order to be reminded that every day I need to rebuild myself and to accept for the first time in my entire existence that I love another human being more than I love myself.

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'It's odd,' says the warrior of light to himself. 'I have met so many people who, at the first opportunity, try to show their very worst qualities. They hide their inner strength behind aggression; they hide their fear of loneliness behind an air of independence. They do not believe in their own abilities, but are constantly trumpeting their virtues.'
The warrior reads these messages in many of the men and women he meets. He is never taken in by appearances and makes a point of remaining silent when people try to impress him. And he uses the occasion to correct his own faults, for other people make an excellent mirror.
A warrior takes every opportunity to teach himself.

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From now on, and for a few hundred years, the universe will help the warriors of light, and will obstacle those who have prejudice.
The energy of the earth has to be renewed.
Ideas need space.
The body and soul feel the need of new challenges.
The future has turned into the present, and all dreams, a part from those that imply preconceptions, will have the possibility to manifest themselves.
What is important shall persist; what is useless shall vanish.
But the warrior knows that it isn't his business to judge the dreams of the nex person, and doesn't waste time criticizing other people's decisions.
To believe in his path, he doesn't have to prove that the one chosen by the other is wrong.

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Every warrior of light has felt afraid of going into battle.
Every warrior of light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone.
Every warrior of light has trodden a path that was not his.
Every warrior of light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons.
Every warrior of light has, at least once, believed that he was not a warrior of
light.
Every warrior of light has failed in his spiritual duties.
Every warrior of light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no'.
Every warrior of light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a warrior of light, because he has been through all this and
yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.

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But now I knew that true love was above all that and that it would be better to die than to fail to love. I had thought that only others had the courage to love. But now I discovered that I too was capable of loving. Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price. (from By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)

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I also knew that from this moment on I was going to experience heaven and hell, joy and pain, dreams and hopelessness; that I would no longer be capable of containing the winds that blew from the hidden corners of my soul. I knew that from this moment on love would be my guide and that it had waited to lead me ever since childhood, when I had felt love for the first time. (from "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept")