Great Throughts Treasury

"A man's heart is a wretched thing. It's not like a woman's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you!"

"A person who goes in search of God is wasting his time. He can walk a thousand roads and join many religions and sects?but he'll never find God that way. God is here, right now, at our side. We can see Him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around. But meeting Him is not easy. The more God asks us to participate in His mysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly to follow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way. Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the father."

"A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual."

"A rose dreams of enjoying the company of bees, but none appears. The sun asks: Aren?t you tired of waiting? Yes, answers the rose, but if I close my petals, I will wither and die."

"A threat leads to nothing if it is not accepted. In fighting the good fight, you should never forget that. Just as you should never forget that both attacking and fleeing are part of the fight. What isn't a part of the fight is becoming paralyzed by fear."

"A teacher 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."

"A shepherd may like to travel, but he should never forget about his sheep."

"A seagull was ?ying over a beach, when it saw a mouse. It ?ew down and asked the mouse: Where are your wings? Each animal speaks its own language, and so the mouse didn?t understand the question, but stared at the two strange, large things attached to the other creature?s body. It must have some illness, thought the mouse. The seagull noticed the mouse staring at its wings and thought: Poor thing. It must have been attacked by monsters that left it deaf and took away its wings. Feeling sorry for the mouse, the seagull picked it up in its beak and took it for a ride in the skies. It?s probably homesick, the seagull thought while they were ?ying. Then, very carefully, it deposited the mouse once more on the ground. For some months afterward, the mouse was sunk in gloom; it had known the heights and seen a vast and beautiful world. However, in time, it grew accustomed to being just a mouse again and came to believe that the miracle that had occurred in its life was nothing but a dream."

"A warrior cannot lower his head - otherwise he loses sight of the horizon of his dreams."

"A Warrior knows that an angel and a devil are both competing for his sword hand. The devil says: You will weaken. You will not know exactly when. You are afraid. The angel says: You will weaken. You will not know exactly when. You are afraid. The Warrior is surprised. Both the angel and the devil have said the same thing. The devil continues: Let me help you. And the angel says: I will help you. At that moment the Warrior understands the difference. The words may be the same but these two allies are completely different. And he chooses the angel's hand."

"A Warrior of the Light is always committed. He is the slave of his dream and free to act."

"A Warrior knows that the ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means."

"A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense! The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin."

"A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published."

"A Warrior of the Light never picks fruit before it is ripe."

"A Warrior of the Light pays attention to the eyes of a child. Because they know those eyes see the world without bitterness."

"A Warrior of the Light respects the main teaching of the I Ching: 'To persevere is favorable.' He knows that perseverance is not the same thing as insistence. There are times when battles go on longer than necessary, draining him of strength and enthusiasm. At such moments, the warrior thinks: 'A prolonged war finally destroys the victors too.' Then he withdraws his forces from the battlefield and allows himself a respite. He perseveres in his desire, but knows he must wait for the best moment to attack. A warrior always returns to the fray. He never does so out of stubbornness, but because he has noticed a change in the weather."

"A Warrior of the Light values a child's eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would"

"A Warrior of the Light makes decisions. His soul is as free as the clouds in the sky, but he is committed to his dream. On his freely chosen path, he often has to get up earlier than he would like, speak to people from whom he learns nothing, make certain sacrifices. His friends say: You?re not free. The Warrior is free. But he knows that an open oven bakes no bread."

"A Warrior of the Light never resorts to trickery, but he knows how to distract his opponent."

"A world without stupid people would be chaos! Was the voice of leather wearing apparel chains. Instead of unemployed as we have today, and would spare no jobs to work! - Basta! My voice sounded authoritative, decisive. Let no one say anything more! And to my surprise, there was silence. My heart was boiling inside, but I kept talking to the cops as if it were the calmest person in the world. were dangerous, they would not be provoking-Si. Policeman turned to the cashier:-If. needs us, we'll be near And before he said to the other, so that his voice hear throughout the store: 'I love stupid people. wrongly, this time may be required to deal with robbers 'You're right,' said the other cop- . Stupid people distracts us, and it is safe. With the usual formalities, they fired me."

"A woman of the desert knows that she must await her man."

"A young man has long remained sitting beside the well, realizing that he was one day face the wind blew the smell of the woman and that she is loved even before you found out that it exists and that it will inspire those that finds all the riches of this world."

"Advice is the theory of life; practice, in general, is very different."

"According to Plato, a Greek philosopher: At the beginning of creation, men and women were not as now; there was only one being low, with a body and a neck, but the head had two faces, each looking in one direction. It was as if the two creatures were trapped in the back, with two opposite sexes, four legs and four arms. Greeks gods, however, were jealous, and saw a creature that had four arms working more, the two opposite faces were always vigilant and did not require much effort to stand or walk for long periods. And, what was more dangerous, such creature had two different sexes, did not need anyone to continue to reproduce. Then Zeus, the supreme lord of Paradise said: I have a plan to make these mortals lose their strength. And, with a radius, cut the creature in two, creating man and woman. This greatly increased the population of the world, while disoriented and weakened those who lived it-because they now had to look again its lost share, hug her again, and this embrace regain former strength, the ability to avoid betrayal, resistance to walk for long periods and endure the exhausting work. In this embrace where the two bodies merge back into a call sex? After the gods purge the said creature with the opposite sex, why some of them decide that said hug can be just one thing, a business like any other that instead of increasing, removes power to the people?"

"According to the laws of nature, one should destroy the other, but in love neither good nor evil, there is neither construction nor destruction, there is merely movement. And love changes the laws of nature."

"About the nature of human beings. I discovered that confronted by temptation, we will always fall. Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil."

"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."

"Absolute freedom does not exist: there is only the freedom to choose something from this moment on, to feel bound by its own decision."

"Accumulating love brings luck, accumulating hatred brings calamity. Anyone who fails to recognize problems leaves the door open for tragedies to rush in."

"After accepting love as a stimulus, a man faces the third obstacle: the fear of the defeats he will encounter along the way. A man who fights for his dream suffers far more when something doesn?t go well, because he cannot use the famous excuse: oh, well in fact that wasn?t exactly what I wanted anyway? He does want it, and knows he is putting everything into it, and also that the Personal Legend is just as difficult as any other path - the difference being that your heart is present on this journey. So, a warrior of the light must be prepared to be patient at difficult times, and know that the Universe is conspiring in his favor, even if he does not understand how."

"After all, that's what happens in this world to most people: seek the suffering in the most joyful, because they think they do not deserve happiness."

"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."

"After some time, the bitter does not fit any desire. It has no will or living or dying. This is the problem."

"Age only slows down those who never had the courage to walk at their own pace."

"All battles in life serve to teach us something, even those we lose. When you grow up, find out and defended lies, you cheated yourself or suffered for foolishness. If you're a good fighter, do not blame me for it, but not let your mistakes repeated."

"All human beings are different and should take their right to be different to its ultimate consequences."

"All love stories are the same."

"Alchemist is like getting up at dawn and seeing the sun rise when other are asleep."

"All human beings need to keep this energy in movement. So, the first thing one must understand is that it is made up of two extremes, which walk side-by-side during the entire act: relaxation and tension."

"All I know is that, like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God?s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend."

"All life's battles teach us something, even those we lose. When you grow up, you'll discover that you have defended lies, deceived yourself, or suffered foolishness. If you're a good warrior you will not blame yourself for this, but neither will you allow your mistakes to repeat themselves."

"All men and all women are connected by an energy which many people call love, but which is, in fact, the raw material from which the universe was built."

"All men, high or low, arrogant or humble, friendly or cold, have a common characteristic: they came to the club when they're scared. The more experience, the more I see clearly what they conceal fear by talking loudly, more timid, more unnatural they cannot hide their emotions, and started drinking to that is they cannot control fear anymore. But I believe, with a fragile hope that-the special guests that Milan have yet to introduce me-all of them were afraid. Fearing what? I was the right person to tremble. I was to leave the club and disappeared into a strange hotel, and I did not have the supernatural or what have nuclear weapons. Men are very strange, but I'm not referring only to the Copacabana alone, I want to say to all the men I ever met. They can beat you, screaming in your face broad, threaten you, but they really are afraid to die are women. Maybe it is not the woman they marry, but there's always a woman that they are afraid and force them into submission by her erratic. Even the woman may be the mother of them."

"All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that's a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly."

"All people know exactly how we should live our lives and never have any idea how to live their own lives."

"All men and women are connected by an energy which we call love, but which is, in fact, the raw material from which the universe was built. This energy cannot be manipulated, it leads us gently forward, it contains all we have to learn in this life. If we try to make it go in the direction we want, we end up desperate, frustrated, disillusioned, because that energy is free and wild."

"All that we are making is to equate ourselves to avenge our enemies, while we pardon them show wisdom and intelligence. With the exception of the monks in the Himalayas and the saints in the deserts I think the feelings of revenge all because it is an essential part of the human condition."

"All things are manifestations of one thing only."

"All things are one."