Paulo Coelho (quotes) - Wisdom Trove

Advice for living

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Be yourself …

…in all the woods and forests, God did not create a single leaf the same as any other… People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different.
All men are different. And should do everything possible to continue to be so.
If only everyone could know and live with their inner craziness. Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier.
If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

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… and follow your own path

Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.
Each person is different and each one will reach God by his or her own path.
For the warrior, there is no “better” or “worse”; everyone has the necessary gifts for his particular path.
Fortunate are those who take the first steps.
He chooses the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.
I’m afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, but by taking those steps despite my fears, I have a much more interesting life.
In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.
In order to have faith in his own path, a warrior does not need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong.
We always know which is the best road to follow, but we follow only the road that we have become accustomed to.
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.
When you travel towards your objective, be sure to pay attention to the path. The path teaches us the best way to arrive and enriches us while we are traveling along it.
Choosing one path means abandoning others – if you try to follow every possible path you will end up following none.
Choosing a path means having to miss out on others.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

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See life as a journey …

In our obsessive wish to arrive, we often forget the most important thing, which is the journey.
Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive. Repeat that to yourself every morning: ‘I’ve arrived.’ That way you’ll find it much easier to stay in touch with each second of your day.
Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moments help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments — but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.
The end of one stage is only the beginning of another. Any dangers overcome are the necessary preparation to do better in the next stage.
The landscape changes, so enjoy it: of course, you have to have an objective in mind – to reach the top. But as you are going up, more things can be seen, and it’s no bother to stop now and again and enjoy the panorama around you. At every meter conquered, you can see a little further, so use this to discover things that you still had not noticed.
The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.
To avoid falling into treacherous traps, it is best to consider that you have covered half your journey only when you have walked ninety percent of the road.
We are travellers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.

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… and an opportunity for adventure

A philosophy of life: I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.
I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life.
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.
The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort.
The pleasure of the search and of adventure feeds our dreams.

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Believe in the beauty of your dreams and commit yourself to them

A warrior of light always commits himself. He is enslaved to his dream but he is free in his steps.
But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.
Dreams nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body. The pleasure of the search and of adventure feed our dreams.
Follow your dreams, transform your life.
Go and get your things,’ he said. ‘Dreams mean work.’
If you choose to follow the path of your dreams, commit yourself to it. Accept your path.
Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.
The Universe always conspires to help dreamers.
The world lies in the hands of those who have the courage to dream and who take the risk of living out their dreams – each according to his or her own talent.
We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.

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Know what you want …

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.
You must always know what it is that you want.

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… and abandon yourself to that

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth… And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.

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Abandon yourself also to love

After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it’s a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it’s sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.
Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant and rank.
Certain things in life simply have to be experienced and never explained. Love is such a thing.
How does light enter a person? Through the open door of love.
I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
In love lies the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we are to the spiritual experience.
Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured.
Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person.
Love is the key to understanding all mysteries.
Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.
Love was a feeling completely bound up with colour, like thousands of rainbows superimposed one on top of the other.
Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.
Reason lost the battle, and all I could do was surrender and accept I was in love.
The spiritual path can only be travelled through the daily experience of love.
The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.
The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.
Those who are truly enlightened, those whose souls are illuminated by love, have been able to overcome all of the inhibitions and preconceptions of their era. They have been able to sing, to laugh, and to pray out loud; they have danced and shared what Saint Paul called ‘the madness of saintliness’. They have been joyful – because those who love conquer the world and have no fear of loss. True love is an act of total surrender.
To love is to commune with another person and to discover in him or her a divine spark.
True love allows each person to follow his or her own path, aware that doing so can never drive them apart.
When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.
In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.
With love, there are no rules. The heart decides and what it decides is all that really matters.
Everyone knows how to love because we are all born with that gift.
The aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love.
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.
I’m not saying that love always takes you to heaven. Your life can become a nightmare. But that said, it is worth taking the risk.
Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time.
This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.

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Abandon yourself to mystery

We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.

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Abandon yourself to the search

I discovered that searching can be as interesting as finding.
The pleasure of the search and of adventure feeds our dreams.

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Abandon yourself to self-growth and self-transformation

After all, there is no such thing as a perfect being Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.
Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle. Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone. Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his. Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons. Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light. Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties. Every Warrior of the Light has said ‘yes’ when he wanted to say ‘no.’ Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved. That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.
He tries to show each person how much they are capable of achieving.
Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky.

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Abandon yourself to learning

People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.
Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.
The most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage.
There is only one way to learn. It’s through action.
Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.
What does learning mean: accumulating knowledge or transforming your life?
All battles in life serve to teach us something, even the battles we lose.
Abandon yourself to Intuition
The boy was beginning to understand that 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 able to know everything, because it’s all written there.
You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.
What is a teacher? I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.

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Abandon yourself to enthusiasm

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

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Embrace life, being open to whatever it brings

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.
It isn’t expectations that carry us forward, it’s our desire to go on.
Its best to live as if it were the first and last day of my life.
When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.
Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.

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Appreciate and celebrate …

Life is like a great bicycle race, whose aim is to fulfil our personal legend, which, according to the ancient alchemists, is our true mission on earth… As we pedal to our goal, we must make a point of asking ourselves: “What is beautiful about today?”
Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees.
Our time on this earth is sacred, and we should celebrate every moment.
The warrior of light concentrates on the small miracles of daily life.
The Warrior tries to enjoy the small everyday things of life.
You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we’re busy doing something or contemplating life.
When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‘Oh my God, what a blessing.’ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

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… especially the ordinary and simple things

I understand once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things.
It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.
The warrior of light concentrates on the small miracles of daily life.
The Warrior tries to enjoy the small everyday things of life.
We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life.

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Pay attention to the present

Everything is worship if your mind is focused on the present moment.
The secret lies in the present – if you pay attention to the present, you will be able to improve it. And if you improve the present, whatever happens afterwards will be better too. Each day brings us Eternity.

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Realise the power of choice and decisiveness

A man has to choose. This is where lies his strength: in the power of his decisions.
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.
Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he’ll never move.
You must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing.
The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people’s opinions.

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Travel and explore

I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads.

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Pray

A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual.
Courage is fear that prays.
When he is forced to perform the same task several times, the Warrior uses this tactic and transforms work into prayer.

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Have courage

And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.
Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.
Courage is fear that prays.
Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I don’t have the courage to say “yes” to life?
Face your path with courage, don’t be scared of people’s criticism. And, above all, don’t let yourself get paralyzed by your own criticism.
Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way to show that we trust in God.
It is necessary to run risks, to follow certain paths and to abandon others. No one can make a choice without feeling fear.
The boat is safer anchored at the port; but that’s not the aim of boats.
The great virtue of those who seek the spiritual path is courage.
The most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage.
When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change.

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Commit

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose–and commit myself to–what is best for me.
A warrior of light always commits himself. He is enslaved to his dream but he is free in his steps.
If you choose to follow the path of your dreams, commit yourself to it. Accept your path.
When the Warrior takes on a commitment, he keeps his word.
When there is no turning back, then we should concern ourselves only with the best way of going forward.

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Act and contemplate

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.
Each human being was given two possibilities: action and contemplation. Both lead to the same place.
Magical places are always beautiful and deserve to be contemplated. . . Always stay on the bridge between the invisible and the visible.
When we turn around and come face to face with our destiny, we discover that words (spoken) are not enough. I know so many people who are brilliant speakers but are quite incapable of practising what they preach. It’s one thing to describe a situation and quite another to experience it. I realised a long time ago that a warrior in search of his dream must take his inspiration from what he actually does and not from what he imagines himself doing.

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Let go of attachment

Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them.
In any activity, we have to know what to expect, how to reach our objectives and what capacity we possess for the proposed task. The only people who can say they have renounced the fruit are those who, thus equipped, feel no desire for the results of the conquest, and remain absorbed in combat. You can renounce the fruit, but this renunciation does not mean indifference toward the result.
The true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.

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Listen to your heart

Why do we have to listen to our hearts? Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.
You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.
I’ve been through all this before, he says to his heart. “Yes, you have been through all this before,” replies his heart. “But you have never been beyond it.
There is a language that is beyond words. If I can learn to decipher that language without words, I will be able to decipher the world.
Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.

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Persevere

Be prepared to climb one kilometre more: the way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far. But since you were prepared to go beyond, this is not really a problem.
The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

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Understand yourself

The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world.
Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

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Be open to change

As long as it doesn’t harm anyone, change your opinions now and then and be unashamedly contradictory.
By changing the way you do routine things you allow a new man to grow inside you.

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Feel your feelings

Do not try to explain feelings. Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from God.
As she had been walking from the ward to that room, she had felt such pure hatred that now she had no more rancor left in her heart. She had finally allowed her negative feelings to surface, feelings that had been repressed for years in her soul. She had actually FELT them, and they were no longer necessary, they could leave.
Feelings do not grow old along with the body. Feelings form part of a world I don’t know, but it’s a world where there’s no time, no space, no frontiers.

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Join those who lift you up

Join with those who sing songs, tell stories, enjoy life … because happiness is contagious. Join those who walk with their heads high even when they have tears in their eyes. Avoid those who …have never shed a tear.
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.

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Thoughts on human challenges

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Pain

Don’t allow your wounds to transform you into someone you’re not.
I don’t regret the painful times; I bare my scars as if they were medals.
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.
Loneliness is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
The cup of suffering is not the same size for everyone.
The darkest hour was just before dawn.
The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
Tears are words that need to be written.
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

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Obstacles

He sometimes behaves like water, flowing around the obstacles he encounters.

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Misfortune and loss

Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.
Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would be had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur, and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild.
When life makes us face difficult situations—such as a personal loss—we have to understand that eternity is taking one more step.
When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive.
When you feel really lost and upset, laugh at yourself.
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.
There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.

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Unhappiness

No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.

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Fear

Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.
How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.
If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.
Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.
The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.

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Death

An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely.
Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person’s life its true meaning.
Whenever someone dies, a part of the universe dies too. Everything a person felt, experience and saw dies with them, like tears in the rain.

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Anxiety and tension

A warrior of the light never confuses tension with anxiety.
The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

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Approval seeking

Our human condition makes us tend to share only the best of ourselves, because we are always searching for love and approval.
We wouldn’t worry nearly as much about what others thought of us if we recognize how seldom they do.
Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.
Don’t explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you.
Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

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Obsession

An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb.

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Letting go of the past

If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now. Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it. Focus only on the moments when you achieved what you desired, and that strength will help you to get what you want.
It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.

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More thoughts

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What children can teach

There are three things that a child can teach an adult: To be happy for no reason; to be always busy doing something; And to know how to demand – with all one’s might – what one wants.
A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.

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Writing

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.
Tears are words that need to be written.
I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don’t hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.
I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.

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Stories

Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.
If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now. Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it.
The most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don’t talk anymore, they don’t sit down to talk and listen. They go to the theatre, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. If we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.

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Silence

If only we could be enlightened enough to be able to listen in the silence.

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Faith and trust

The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality – it connects you to reality.
None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.

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Sex

Anyone who is observant, who discovers the person they have always dreamed of, knows that sexual energy comes into play before sex even takes place. The greatest pleasure isn’t sex, but the passion with which it is practiced. When the passion is intense, then sex joins in to complete the dance, but it is never the principal aim.
During sex, it is very difficult to deceive the other person because that is when each person shows who they really are.

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Fate and control

I don’t try to control my days.
Nothing in this world happens by chance.
I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.
What’s the world’s greatest lie? It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

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Nature

Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.

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Religion

All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect.
But in the end all religions tend to point to the same light. In between the light and us, sometimes there are too many rules.

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God

Each person is different and each one will reach God by his or her own path.
God hides the fires of hell within paradise.
God is love, generosity and forgiveness; If we believe in this, we will never allow our weaknesses to paralyze us.
All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect.
Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way to show that we trust in God.
I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birth right of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the divinity of God.
I understand once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things.

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Dancing

If theater is ritual, then dance is too… It’s as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.

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Elegance

Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.
Physical elegance, which is what I am talking about here, comes from the body. This is no superficial matter, but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.

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Being in love

I’ve been in love before, it’s like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day you want more. You’re not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes then forget them for three hours. But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he’s not there, you feel like an addict who can’t get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you’re willing to do anything for love.

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