Literary Works

"A voice accosted me — a very quiet and very musical key of voice—in a language of which I could not understand a word, but it served to dispel my fear. I uncovered my face and looked up."

"But the face! it was that which inspired my awe and my terror... The face was beardless; but a nameless something in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous though the features, roused that instinct of danger which the sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. (Chapter IV)"

"Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings folded over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of its attire was composed of an under tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. It wore on its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel."

"The world without a sun was bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but the air less oppressive, the heat softer. Nor was the scene before me void of signs of habitation. (Chapter III)"

"...to my infinite surprise, streamed upward a steady brilliant light... As I drew nearer and nearer to the light, the chasm became wider, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable amaze, a broad level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far as the eye could reach by what seemed artificial gas lamps placed at regular intervals, as in the thoroughfare of a great city; and I heard confusedly at a distance a hum as of human voices... Whose could be those voices? What human hands could have levelled that road and marshalled those lamps? (Chapter II)"

"The reader will understand, ere he close this narrative, my reason for concealing all clue to the district of which I write, and will perhaps thank me for refraining from any description that may tend to its discovery. (Chapter I)"

"I am a native of _____, in the United States of America... My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth... In the year 18__, happening to be in _____, I was invited by a professional engineer, with whom I had made acquaintance, to visit the recesses of the ________ mine, upon which he was employed... (Chapter I)"

"The Major Arcana of the Tarot are neither allegories or secrets. [...They] are authentic symbols. They conceal and reveal their sense at one and the same time according to the depth of meditation."

"[I]t is the deep and intimate layers of the soul which become active and bear fruit when one meditates on the Arcana of the Tarot."

""That which is above is like to that which is below and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of (the) one thing. (Tabula Smaragdina)." This is the classic formula of analogy for all that exists in space, above and below; the formula of analogy applied in time would be: That which was is as that which will be, and that which will be is as that which was, to accomplish the miracles of eternity."

"The tenet of the basic oneness of the world plays the same fundamental role for all theory as that of concentration for all practice. [...] All search for truth [...] postulates its existence, i.e. the fundamental unity of the multiplicity of phenomena in the world. Without this unity nothing would be knowable. How could one proceed from the known to the unknown [...] if the unknown had nothing to do with the known?"

"If one wants to practice some form of authentic esotericism [...] it is necessary to be the Magician, i.e. concentrated without effort, operating with ease as if one were playing, and acting with perfect calm."

"He who finds silence in the solitude of concentration without effort, is never alone. He never bears alone the weights that he has to carry; the forces of heaven, the forces from on high, are there taking part from now on. [...] For silence is the sign of real contact with the spiritual world and this contact, in turn, always engenders the influx of forces. This is the foundation of all mysticism, all gnosis, all magic and all practical esotericism."

"St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura [...] not only make use of analogy but also assign it a very important theoretical role in their doctrines themselves. St. Thomas advances the doctrine of analogia antis, the analogy of being, which is the principal key to his philosophy. St. Bonaventura, in his doctrine of signatura rerum, interprets the entire visible world as the symbol of the invisible world. For him, the visible world is only another Holy Scripture, another revelation alongside that which is contained in the Holy Scripture [...] Now, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventura have been proclaimed (by Sixtus V in 1588, and again in 1879 by Leo XIII) "duae olivae et duo candelabra in domo Dei lucentia" ("two olive trees and two chandeliers shining in the house of God"). You see therefore, dear Unknown Friend, that we are able, you and I, to declare openly our faith in analogy and proclaim aloud the formula of the Emerald Table, consecrated by tradition, without appearing thereby to be infidels to philosophy, science, and the official doctrines of the Church."

"The changing of work, which is duty, into play, is effected as a consequence of the presence of the "zone of perpetual silence", where one draws from a sort of secret and intimate respiration, whose sweetness and freshness accomplishes the anointing of work and transforms it into play."

"With time, the silence or "concentration without effort" becomes a fundamental element always present in the life of the soul. It is like the perpetual service at the church of Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre which takes place, whilst in Paris one works, one trades, one amuses oneself, one sleeps, one dies...It is in like manner that a "perpetual service" of silence is established in the soul, which continues all the same when one is active, when one works, or when one converses."

"Concentration without effort [...] It is the profound silence of desires, of preoccupations, of the imagination, of the memory and of discursive thought. One may say that the entire being becomes like the surface of calm water, reflecting the immense presence of the starry sky and its indescribable harmony. And the waters are deep, they are so deep! And the silence grows, ever increasing...what silence! Its growth takes place through regular waves which pass, one after the other, through your being: one wave of silence followed by another wave of more profound silence, then again a wave of still more profound silence...Have you ever drunk silence? [Then] you know what concentration without effort is."

"Look at a tightrope walker. He is evidently completely concentrated, because if he were not, he would fall to the ground. [...] Yet do you believe that his thought and his imagination are occupied with what he is doing? Do you think that he reflects and that he imagines, that he calculates and that he makes plans with regard to each step that he makes on the rope? If he were do that, he would fall immediately."

"Concentration, as the faculty of fixing maximum attention on a minimum amount of space [...] is the practical key to all success in every domain."

"[T]he principle underlying all the [...] Major Arcana of the Tarot is "that of the rapport of personal effort and of spiritual reality." [...T]he first and fundamental principle of esotericism (i.e. of the way of experience of the reality of the spirit) can be rendered by the formula: Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke that you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light! This counsel [is attested by] the words of the Master Himself: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew xi, 30)."

"Of what does this first Card consist? A young man [...] - who is the Magician [...] What he does with his hands is with perfect spontaneity - it is easy play and not work. He himself does not follow the movement of his hands; his gaze is elsewhere."

"[H]ermeticism, the living Hermetic tradition, guards the communal soul of all true culture. I must add: Hermeticists listen to - and now and then hear - the beating of the heart of the spiritual life of humanity."

"Loyal men and women do not bother to show what they are like, because other loyal spirits understand their qualities and defects."

"We will all have to face many adversaries in our lives, but the most difficult to defeat will be the ones we fear. We will always meet rivals in everything we do, but the most dangerous are those we believe to be our friends."

"Roman Catholic Crusaders have surrounded Jerusalem. Attack is imminent. Many of the residents of Jerusalem will flee before the battle, yet others will stay to fight, knowing that they will likely die. Before this historic battle takes place, the Copt asks all the people to come to the city square. He asks the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions to join him... The people proceed to ask... twenty questions. Each chapter... details the Copt’s answer to their questions. The questions and answers deal with matters close to the heart of all of us: love, fear, loss, death, beauty, courage, friendship, and dreams. ...[It] is a treasure-trove of wisdom... a book that can be read over and over, with each reading giving new insight... I am an atheist...yet I found the book affirming many of the humanistic values I hold dear. Yes, Coelho is a religious man, a practicing Catholic, but can we not all learn from people who are different from us, people who, despite our differences, hold a common humanity with us?... The strict materialist will find little to like... But for those who dream of a better tomorrow, who still have hope and seek a world of peace, Paulo Coelho’s latest book will inspire and provoke us to be better human beings."

"Blessed are those who hear these words or read this manuscript, because the veil will be rent from top to bottom, and there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed to you."

"Do not think that I am come to spread peace upon the Earth. No, from this night on, we will travel the world bearing an invisible sword, so that we can fight the demons of intolerance and lack of understanding. Try to carry that sword as far as your legs will take you. And when your legs can take you no further, pass on the word or the manuscript, always choosing people worthy of wielding that sword."

"Your enemies are not the adversaries who were put there to test your courage. They are the cowards who were put there to test your weakness."

"The world does not divide up into enemies and friends, but into the weak and the strong. The strong are generous in victory. The weak gang up on the losers, unaware that defeat is only a transitory thing, and from among the losers, they choose those who seem most vulnerable."

"Never repay hatred with hatred, but with justice."

"The most important of wars is not waged with a lofty spirit and with your soul accepting its fate. It is the war that is going on now as we are speaking and whose battlefield is the Spirit, where Good and Evil, Courage and Cowardice, Love and Fear face each other."

"Only fight with a worthy opponent, and not with someone who uses trickery to prolong a war that is already over, as happens with all wars. Such cruelty does not come from the warriors who meet on the battlefield and know what they are doing there, but from those who manipulate victory and defeat for their own ends."

"If someone confronts you over ideas or ideals, step up and accept the fight, because conflict is present in every moment of our lives and sometimes it needs to show itself in the broad light of day. But do not fight in order to prove that you are right or to impose your ideas or ideals on someone else. Only accept the fight as a way of keeping your spirit clean and your will spotless. When the fight is over, both sides will emerge as winners, because they tested their limitations and their abilities."

"Do not make yourself vulnerable to those weak spirits who cannot bear to encounter a strong spirit."

"Just as someone puts on new clothes, discarding the old, so the soul accepts new material bodies, abandoning the old and the useless. Knowing this, you must not suffer because of the body. ”"

"Beware of anyone who tries to please you all the time."

"None of us can avoid meeting those who will betray and slander us, but we can drive away the evil before it shows its true face, because any excessively kind behaviour could betray a knife hidden behind the back and ready to be used."

"Once we understand this, we can sit next to our neighbour at the end of the day and listen with respect to what he has to say and say what he needs to hear. And neither of us will try to impose our ideas on the other."

"Accept this as part of some superior plan and go forward. Man is not defined by earthly battles, because just as the wind changes direction, so do luck and victory."

"The warrior on the battlefield is fulfilling his destiny, and he must surrender himself to that. Pity those who think they can kill or die! The Divine Energy cannot be destroyed, it simply changes its form."

"The truly wise do not grieve over the living or the dead. Therefore, accept the battle that awaits you tomorrow, because we are made of the Eternal Spirit, which often places us in situations that we need to confront."

"When you forgive, the person who insulted you feels humbled in his error and becomes loyal."

"He is thus making use of one of Love’s qualities, namely Forgiveness. This helps him rise above all the insults spoken in the heat of battle, which time will soon erase, just as the wind erases footsteps from the sands of the desert."

"The wounded person should ask himself: Is it worth filling my heart with hatred and dragging the weight of it around with me?’"

"Wise men often defeat warriors, but warriors also defeat wise men. To avoid this, it is best to seek the peace and repose that exists in the differences between human beings."

"Loyalty has its roots in respect and respect is the fruit of Love, and Love drives out the demons of the imagination - which distrust everything and everyone - and, instead, returns purity to our gaze."

"All weapons are instruments of evil because they are not the instruments of the wise man."

"Where there is loyalty, weapons are of no use."

"Beyond the mountains that separate the tribes, beyond the distance that separates bodies, there exists the community of spirits. We are part of that, and there are no streets peopled with pointless words, only broad avenues that connect what is distant and sometimes have to be repaired because of the damage caused by time."

"Men and women blame each other for the disaster. They say: 'Someone should have foreseen what was going to happen.’ Or: ‘If I had been in charge, these problems could have been avoided.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. We are all prisoners of the sands of time, and we have no control over them."