Good Read: The Alchemist

Have you read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho?  It is a really great read that my dear friend recommended, which I finished reading recently.  I highly recommend this book to all!  This book traces the spiritual path and of a young shepherd boy who is compelled to follow his dream of finding a hidden treasure in Egypt.  To do so, he must leave the comfort zone of home, learn to trust the “Soul of the World,” and believe that there are forces in the universe that want us to be happy.  In order to find happiness, however, the boy must first discover his “Personal Legend”— that is to say, he must to discover what he is meant to do in the world.  Fortunately, the boy soon takes the first step in his acquisition of happiness — he listens to his heart and overcomes fear.  As the boy continues his sometimes painful journey, he discovers that one cannot be dissuaded from pursuing a “Personal Legend,” even if the choices seem impossible to bear.  The end result for anyone who does so, Coelho assures his readers, is physical and spiritual reward.

Some of my favorite quotes from this book are shown below.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

“All things are one.”

“Never stop dreaming.”

“Follow the omens.”

“Making a decision was only the beginning of things.  When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

“If I could, I’d write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence.  It’s with those words the universal language is written.”

“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.”

“Because I don’t live in either my past or my future, I’m only interested in the present.  If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man.  You’ll see that there is life win the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesman fight because they are part of the human race.  Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.”

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

“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 is all written there.”

“Because 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.”

“The most important part of the language that all the world spoke — the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart — it was love.”

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person realize his dream.”

“Don’t think about what you’ve left behind…Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever.”

“Wherever your heart is that is where you’ll find your treasure.”

“You will never be able to escape from your heart.  So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.  That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.”

“When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for to achieve.”

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck.  And every search ends with the victors being severely tested.”

“Don’t give into your fears…If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.”

“When we strive to be better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”