The Alchemist – by Paulo Coelho

This book is very special to me, probably because I read it during a tough time in my life. Also, around the time that I was reading this book for the first time, I met my future wife. When I finished the book, I gave it to her as a present. She read it and loved it, and we still have this book in common to this day. 

The Alchemist is a book about following your dreams, literally and metaphorically. It is the journey of a young boy named Santiago who learns to listen to his heart and speak the language of the Universe.

The book is profoundly simple and filled with wisdom. I’m sure it is enjoyed by a wide range of people, but I would recommend this book most to teenagers and people in their twenties. 

Here are some of my favorite quotes & passages:

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

“Dreams are the language of God.”

“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.”

“When someone sees the same people every day… 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 others should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

“… at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s biggest lie.”

The boy didn’t know what a person’s “Personal Legend” was. “It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is… At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and yo yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.”

“…beauty is the great seducer of men.”

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

“Everything in life is an omen… There is a universal language, understood by everybody, but already forgotten.”

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

“The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being.”

“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world are written by the same hand.”

“The three fell silent. The boy noticed that there was a sense of fear in the air, even though no one said anything. Once again he was experiencing the language without words… the universal language.”

“If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day as any other…If you can concentrate on the present, you’ll be a happy man.”

“He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and he couldn’t separate them.”

“Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.”

“Isn’t wine prohibited here?” the boy asked. “It’s not what enters men’s mouths that’s evil,” said the alchemist. “It’s what comes out of their mouths that is,” said the alchemist.

“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.”

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

“There is only one way to learn… It is through action.”

“…the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”

“When you possess great treasures within you and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”

“It’s not often that money saves a man’s life.”

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

“We are all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.”

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

“No project is completed until its objective has been achieved”