Ester asked why people are sad.
“That’s simple,” says the old man. “They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.”
Quotations
Paulo Coelho
The wise are wise only because they love. The fools are fools only because they think they can understand love.
Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.
You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
Don’t confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.
