{"author":"Paulo Coelho","author_id":"Paulo+Coelho","total_quotes":629,"quotes":[{"text":"Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure.”“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it's become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I'm thinking about her.”“Well, that's good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.” . . .“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “it doesn't want me to go on.”“That makes sense,” the alchemist answered. “Naturally it's afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you've won.”“Well then, why should I listen to my heart?”“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world.”“You mean I should listen, even if it's treasonous?”“Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you'll know it's dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.”“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 unexpected blow.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["dreams","fear","heart","listening"],"id":613,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose- for death itself is inevitable.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["acievement","conquest","death","fear","life"],"id":1791,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"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.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["bravery","courage","fear","interview","strength"],"id":3041,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["life-lessons","soul"],"id":4017,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["knowing","suffering","waiting"],"id":5901,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"We who determine how quickly time passes.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["kindlehighlight"],"id":6159,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"Instead of buying something for you that you want I give you something that is mine, truly mine. A gift, a sign of respect for the person I have in front of me. Now you have a little piece of me with you which I gave you freely and spontaniously.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["gift"],"id":7358,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"(On the myth of Eros)Each time I recall this myth, I wonder: Are we never to be able to see the true face of love? And I understand what the Greeks meant by this: Love is an act of faith and its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling and emotion because if we try to decipher it and understand it, the magic disappears.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["eros","living","love","mata-hari","spy"],"id":7736,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"With every day that passed, the boy's heart became more and moresilent. It no longer wanted to know about things of the past or future; it was content simply tocontemplate the desert, and to drink with the boy from the Soul of the World. The boy and his heart hadbecome friends, and neither was capable now of betraying the other. When his heart spoke to him, it was to provide a stimulus to the boy, and to give him strength, becausethe days of silence there in the desert were wearisome. His heart told the boy what his strongest qualitieswere: his courage in having given up his sheep and in trying to live out his destiny, and his enthusiasmduring the time he had worked at the crystal shop.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["yourself"],"id":8000,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"},{"text":"After weeks on the road, listening to a language you don’t understand, using a currency whose value you don’t comprehend, walking down streets you’ve never walked down before, you discover that your old “I,” along with everything you ever learned, is absolutely no use at all in the face of those new challenges, and you begin to realize that buried deep in your unconscious mind there is someone much more interesting and adventurous and more open to the world and to new experiences.","author":"Paulo Coelho","tags":["paulo-coelho","spirituality","travel"],"id":8183,"author_id":"Paulo+Coelho"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":629,"pages":63,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}