Great Throughts Treasury

"They were so ignorant, so naive, so resigned to their lot. They refused to believe anything that didn't fit in with what they were used to believing."

"Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. Getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place."

"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."

"They were looking only for gold, his companion answered. They were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend, without wanting actually to live out the Personal Legend."

"They were there, but they were sitting as silently as everyone else, their eyes fixed on you, trying to support you with their gaze, as if a gaze could ever support anyone."

"Think before you bet your happiness for a handful of memories."

"Things do not always happen the way I would have wanted, and its best that I get used to that."

"This could be the fire and the wine, an idea she would like to discuss with him, or simply the pleasurable longing involved in wanting to know when he would come back - Maria would stop what she was doing, smile up at the sky and give thanks for being alive and to be expecting nothing from the man she loved. On the other hand, if her heart began to complain about his absence or about things she shouldn't have said while they were together, she would say to herself: 'Oh, so you want to think about that, do you? All right, then, you do what you like, while I get on with more important things."

"This is a question we cannot answer before or during adversity. Only when we overcome them will understand why they exist."

"This is exactly what I need to do right now: to walk, walk, walk, breathe some fresh air, take a look at a city I?ve never visited before, and enjoy feeling that it?s mine."

"This is for you,' he (the Alchemist) said, holding one of the parts (of gold) 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."

"This is the most brilliant swordsman who looks like a rock. Without a sword from its sheath strips but it proves that no one can oppress!"

"This is not right, and we must recondition the brain so that each sexual experience is unique, just as loving each experience is unique."

"This is the day, the sky is cloudy, and beyond the clouds, human beings believe that lives an all-powerful God, who guides their destiny. But look at your son, look at your feet, listen to the sounds around you: here there is the Mother, much closer, which brings joy to children and energy to those who walk in His body. Why do people prefer to believe in something that is far away and forget what is visible, the true manifestation of the miracle?"

"This is the most dangerous of obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here."

"This is the present moment. Learn how to gobble it up without fear or guilt."

"This is why alchemy exists, the boy said. So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too."

"This is what I wanted. If I believe I will win then victory will believe in me. No life is complete without a touch of madness, or to use J.'s words. What I need to do is reconquer my kingdom. If I can understand what's going on in the world, I can understand what's going on inside myself."

"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."

"This is why they are warriors of the light. Because they err. Because they question. Because they seek a reason - and they will surely find it."

"This should not be the only person who can love us that we hold near us."

"This makes life interesting is the possibility to create a dream come true."

"This morning, my son asked me for money to buy a sheep. Should I help him, do you think? Since it clearly isn?t a matter of urgency, wait another week before giving him your answer. But I have the means to help him now. What difference will a week make? A very great difference indeed. Experience has taught me that people only give value to a thing if they have, at some point, been un-certain as to whether or not they?ll get it."

"This time I m not going to tell you a story. I'll just say that insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It's as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that's going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don't understand the language they speak there."

"This was freedom; to feel what the heart desired with no thought to the opinion of the rest... She was free, for love liberates."

"This was the kiss I had waited for so long - a kiss born by the river of our childhood, when we didn't yet know what love meant. A kiss that had been suspended in the air as we grew, that had traveled in the world in the souvenir of a medal, and that had remained hidden behind piles of books. A kiss that had been lost and now was found. In the moment of that kiss were years of searching, disillusionment and impossible dreams."

"This last week has been a little hell for both of us simply because I didn't understand my own feelings. And because I can't understand them, I blame her for provoking in me feelings that make my world seem suddenly unsafe."

"Those little acts of love that no one noticed, no one knows, justify my life."

"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."

"Those who do not understand their personal legends will fail to comprehend its teachings."

"Those who love expecting something in return waste his time."

"Those who truly want the best of us want us to be happy."

"Those who don't return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become a part of everything... they become the Soul of the World."

"Those who try to kill the body violate God's law. Those who try to kill the soul also violate God's law, even though their crime is less visible to others."

"Throughout my life I have understood love as a kind of consensual slavery. But this is not so: freedom only exists when there is love. Who comes fully who feels free, love to the fullest. And he loves the most, feel free. But in love, each of us is responsible for how you feel, and you cannot blame the other for it. Nobody loses anyone because no one owns anyone. And this is the true experience of freedom: Having the most important world without owning it."

"Those who seem generally very virtuous hide vanity, pride, intolerance."

"Those who make promises they don't keep end up powerless and frustrated, and exactly the same fate awaits those who believe those promises."

"Those who want to start something new, but try to save some of your old way of life was eventually destroyed by his own past."

"Thus love. When we started putting sentences about love, when it should appear or not appear."

"Though I speak-the language of men and of angels, but have the gift of prophesy and have faith to move mountains, but have not love, nothing will."

"Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of your children, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May you understand my love?because it is the only thing I have that is really mine, the only thing that I will be able to take with me into the next life. Please allow it to be courageous and pure; please make it capable of surviving the snares of the world."

"Time and the things that are imprisoned in time's memory."

"Time does not change men. Will power does not change men. Love changes men."

"Time does not pass, it merely changes."

"Time heals almost everything. But when you are healed, you are too old to enjoy."

"Time does not pass. We humans find it difficult to focus on a huge present; We're constantly thinking about what we did, and how can we do better, think about the consequences of our actions, and did not act as it should. Otherwise, we think about the future, what will we do tomorrow, what precautions we have taken, and the impending dangers that lie ahead, how do we acquire the money we want and how to get what we always dreamed of."

"Time that never ends, that never passes, that remains in the present, where all of life's secrets lie."

"To accumulate love means luck, to accumulate hatred means a calamity. Whoever does not Recognize the door to problems will one day leave it open, letting in tragedy."

"Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved."

"To avoid beautiful thoughts turning into suffering, she developed a method: when something positive to do with Ralf Hart came into her head - and this could be the fire and the wine, an idea she would like to discuss with him, or simply the pleasurable longing involved in wanting to know when he would come back - Maria would stop what she was doing, smile up at the sky and give thanks for being alive and to be expecting nothing from the man she loved. On the other hand, if her heart began to complain about his absence or about things she shouldn't have said while they were together, she would say to herself: 'Oh, so you want to think about that, do you? All right, then, you do what you like, while I get on with more important things.' She would continue to read or, if she was out, she would focus her attention on everything around her: colors, people, sounds - especially sounds, the sound of her own footsteps, of the pages turning, of cars, of fragments of conversations, and the unfortunate thought would eventually go away."