The following are my favorites notes and quotes from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.
The heat lasted until nightfall, and all that time he had to carry his jacket. But when he thought to complain about the burden of its weight, he remembered that, because he had the jacket, he had withstood the cold of the dawn.
That was what made traveling appeal to him -- he always made new friends, and he didn't need to spend all of his time with them. When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. 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.
The Soul of the World is nourished by people's happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one's Personal Legend is a person's only real obligation. All things are one.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.
If you start out by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it.
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.
That wind had brought the Moors, yes, but it had also brought the smell of the desert and of veiled women. It had brought with it the sweat and the dreams of men who once left to search for the unknown, and for gold and adventure -- and for the Pyramids. The boy felt jealous of the freedom of the wind, and saw that he could have the same freedom. There was nothing to hold him back except himself.
In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you.
Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else. And don't forget the language of omens. And, above all, don't forget to follow your Personal Legend through to its conclusion.
He had become used to learning which path he should take by observing the ground and the sky. He had discovered that the presence of a certain bird meant that a snake was nearby, and that a certain shrub was a sign that there was water in the area. The sheep had taught him that.
I'm like everyone else -- I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.
He had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure. "I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure," he said to himself.
He walked slowly through the market. The merchants were assembling their stalls, and the boy helped a candy seller do this. The candy seller had a smile on his face: he was happy, aware of what his life was about, and ready to begin a day's work. His smile reminded the boy of the old man -- the mysterious old king he had met. "This candy merchant isn't making candy so that later he can travel or marry a shopkeeper's daughter. He's doing it because it's what he wants to do," thought the boy. He realized that he could do the same thing the old man had done -- sense whether a person was near to or far from his Personal Legend. Just by looking at them. It's easy, and yet I've never done it before, he thought.
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
There was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.
The hills of Andalusia were only two hours away, but there was an entire desert between him and the Pyramids. Yet the boy felt that there was another way to regard his situation: he was actually two hours closer to his treasure... the fact that the two hours had stretched into an entire year didn't matter.
The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being.
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.
When I'm eating, that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other.
I must have no fear of failure. It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the Master Work. Now, I'm beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I'm happy at least that I didn't wait twenty years.
The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.
"It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil," said the alchemist. "It's what comes out of their mouths that is."
You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love... the love that speaks the Language of the World.
Every second of the search is an encounter with God.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
Your eyes show the strength of your soul.
When something evolves, everything around that thing evolves as well.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.
"This is for you," he said, holding one of the parts out to the monk. "It's for your generosity to the pilgrims." "But this payment goes well beyond my generosity," the monk responded. "Don't say that again. Life might be listening, and give you less the next time."
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.
