Quotations from the book Brida by Paulo Coelho

“…in life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one day, they finish what they’re doing. Then they find they’re hemmed in by their own walls. Life losses its meaning when the building stops. “

            “Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and many vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure.”

 

“…it provides answers that few human beings ever manage to find in a whole lifetime, or perhaps because it evokes a romantic past.”

“…it isn’t true that you want to be alone.”

“Perhaps women needed men more than men needed women.”

“They worked hard and honestly, they feared God and they tried to help their fellow man. They did all these things because they had known love.”

“People had been trying to understand the universe through love ever since the beginning of time.”

“Disappointment, defeat, despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”

“Perhaps solitude has made man his madness worse.”

“She had meet people who had lost the flow of being alive because they could no longer fight against loneliness and had ended up becoming addicted to it.”

“…people who believed the world to be an undignified, inglorious place, and who spend their evenings and nights talking on and on about the mistakes others made.”

“…that trust is called Faith.”

“It only existed because she believed in it. Miracles couldn’t be explained either, but they existed for those who believe in them.”

“…for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next time, and yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have faith.”

“That every moment in life is an act of faith.”

“And yet she didn’t have the courage to change. She needed to be constantly struggling to discover her path.”

“And although she was sometimes dissatisfied with herself, she felt unable to go beyond her own limitations.”

“…the path of wisdom means not being afraid to make mistakes.”

“And that process of finding love is called love.”

“The Greater Love that separated them feels pleased with the Love that brings them together again.”

“You could tell your Soul Mate by the light in their eyes, and since the time began, that as been how people have recognized their true love.”

“As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.”

“Is it possible to meet more than one Soul Mate..?

-Yes. And when that happens the heart is divided, and the result is pain and suffering.”

“The essence of Creation is one and one alone. And that essence is called Love.”

“Love is the force that brings us back together, in order to condense the experience dispersed in many lives and many parts of the world.”

“Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring them a Love so intense that is justifies the rest of our days.”

“We can also allow our Soul Mate to pass us by.”

“And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: loneliness.”

“…knowing that humanity learned more easily from vice than from virtue.”

“…but what we see is not always what exists.”

“Because of some thoughtless gestures toward some person, I’ve ended up losing touch with other people I really cared about.”

“But in her mind was miles away, traveling, wandering about in places she’d never been to before.”

“Sometimes we set off down a path simple because we don’t believe in it.”

“…when things start to happen, and the path does reveal itself to us, we become afraid of carrying on.”

“[I don’t understand] why so many people choose to spend their whole life destroying paths they didn’t even want to follow, instead of following the one path that would lead them to somewhere.”

“Women are generally seeking their Soul Mates, and men are looking for Power.”

“Learning something means coming into contact with a world of which you know nothing.”

“In order to learn, you must be humble.”

“The whole of man’s life on the face of Earth can be summed up by that search for his Soul Mate. He may pretend to be running after wisdom, money, or power, but none of that matter. Whatever he achieves will be incomplete if he fails to find his Soul Mate.”

“The soil needs the seed, and the seed needs the soil. The one only has meaning with the other. It is the same thing with human beings. When male knowledge joins with female transformation, then the great magical union is created, and its name is Wisdom. Wisdom means both to know and to transform.”

“The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world.”

“And yet no one life is the same as any other life.’

 It might be that we will never meet again, and I need you to know that I’ve loved you all my life. I love you even before I met you. You’re part of me.”

“…and forgave him because he was her great love, and a great love is above the things of this world.”

“…with affection and her gaiety, had been largely  responsible for him having rediscovers the meaning of life, that her love had been driven him to the  far corners of the earth, because he needed to be rich enough to buy some land and live in peace with her for the rest of his days.”

“The virgin has the power of both man and woman. She is condemned to Solitude, but Solitude reveals its secrets. –to need no one, to wear herself out in her love for others, and, through Solitude, to discover the wisdom of the world.”

“The Martyr has the power of those who cannot be harmed by pain and suffering. She surrenders herself, suffers, and, through Sacrifice, discovers the wisdom of the World.”

“God is the World.”

“Always be very careful what you say in any situation and at any moment”

“God manifests himself in everything.”

“Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God.”

“Emotions really were like wild horses, and all she could do now was set them free.”

“It isn’t explanations that carry us forward; it’s our desire to go on.”

“Right, from now on, whenever you want to find out about something, plunge straight in.”

“After her first romantic disappointment she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pain, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes in older not to see the bad things in life.”

“Life is complicated.”

“You have to take risks, follow some paths, and abandon others.”

‘Perhaps the times when “it” goes wrong are teaching you something.”

“Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong, my dear. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

“If you say the ‘last’ time, it might well turn out to be the last.”

“Whenever she sat still, just looking at something, she got the feeling that she was wasting precious time when she should be doing things or meeting people. She could be spending her time so much better, because there was still too much to learn.”

“Sometimes certain of God’s blessings arrive by shattering all the windows.”

“Judging oneself to be inferior to other people was one of the worst acts of pride he knew, because it as the most destructive way of being different.”

“…at least I will have learned one important thing: we have to take risks.”

“I carry millennia of disappointment within me, and I can no longer learn certain things through simple things of life.”

“She was confused about her own feelings. She was defending herself from something she couldn’t understand.”

“There are no risks in Love, as you’ll find out for yourself.”

“People have been searching for and finding each other for thousands of years.”

“There was always a risk, a single risk: that one person might meet with more than one Soul Mate in the same incarnation, as had happened millennia before.”

“…they could love everything more intensely; finding one’s Soul Mate was after all, a divine mission in everyone’s life.”

“What is outside is harder to change than what is inside.”

“When we’re in bed with someone, we’re giving permission to that person to commune not only with our body but also with our whole being.”

“During sex, it’s very difficult to deceive the other person, because that is when each person shows who they really are.”

“But if you’ve ever felt love, you’ll know how painful it is to suffer for love.”

“But emotions were, indeed, wild horses, and they demanded to be heard.”

“…because when you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and for knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understand all of the mysteries.”

“And there’s no point in understanding the entire Universe if you’re alone.”

“Solitary people lose track of time, the hours are long and the days interminable.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re seeking wisdom or pleasure through the force of sex, it will always be a total experience, because it’s the only experience that touches –or should touch all –all five senses at once.”

“The more the senses are stimulated, the stronger will be the drive toward ecstasy and the more powerful the ecstasy.”

“..she would come back eventually. Because he was telling the truth –and she needed him as much as he needed her.”

“True love allowed each person to follow their own path.”

“Always take the decisions you need to take, even you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing.”

“Play your part, and don’t worry about what others do. Believe that God also speaks to them and that they are as engaged as you are in discovering the meaning of life.”

“…that we will never know that ultimate reason for our existence. We might know the how, where, and when of being here, but the why will always be a question that remains unanswered.”

“Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way of showing that we trust in God.”

“The only way they could truly participate was by following their own desires, their own dreams, because that is how man becomes an instrument of God.”

“…because we understand that each minute, each step that we take, has a meaning that goes far beyond us an individuals.”

“We realize that there is a reason for us being here, and for us, that is enough.”

“Theirs were universes that occasionally collide but they could not answer each others questions. And yet both had questions, and the questions had answers.”

“If he poured more water than wine into the first glass to be drunk, that mean he wished to speak of serious things. If he poured equal quantities of both they would speak of both serious and pleasant things. Finally, if he filled the glass with wine and added only a few drops of water, the night would be relaxing and enjoyable.”

“…wine[s] gives people courage.”

“We only understand life and the Universe when we find our Soul Mate.”

“They quarreled and fought, he begged and implored. He subjected to all the usual humiliations endured by people in love. He learned things he never dreamed he would learn: hope, fear, and acceptance.”

“…emotions were like wild horses and it requires wisdom to be able to control them.”

“We are all masters to our own destiny. We can easily make the same mistakes over and over. We can so easily flee from everything that we desire and which life so generously places before us.”

“Soul Mates always find each other in the end. Long before she knew anything about Soul Mates, she had often heard people speak about that inexplicable phenomenon: Love at first sight.”

“She had known love before, but until that night love had also meant fear.”

“…she understood that love was a feeling completely bound up with color, like thousands of rainbows superimposed one on top of the other.”

“I feel that we were lost and now are saved.”

“An enormous moon lit up the sky, illuminating the countryside. They were naked and in each others arms. And they felt neither cold nor shame.”

“They had confessed their love to each other, and now, like any other couple in those circumstances, they were embarrassed to look each other in the eye.”

“He must have been thinking the same thing she was: how hard it was to leave you Soul Mate once you’d found them.”

“I don’t know if love appears suddenly. But I know that I’m open to love, ready to love.”

“There were certain problems that mothers continued to solve for their daughters.”

“Problems of the heart always bruised the soul.”

“…in the days when she was still hoping to meet someone and be swept up in some whirlwind romance that would put a stop to the endless identical days.”

“And I believed that love was the only reason for living. If you failed to find someone, then you could never claim to have realized your dreams.”

“The sleepless nights, I spent, thinking about how to broach the subject with them. I planned exactly what was going to say and what they would say in reply and how I would answer.”

“They could have enjoyed other such moments, but they were both too caught up in their own words and their own values.”

“After I met your father, I realized too, that my search was over. I didn’t need any other explanation of the world. I didn’t feel frustrated to be living here, always seeing the same people and doing the same things. Every day was different, because of the great love between us.”

“Love became my explanation for life.”

“That man sitting on the steps made me understand that I was important to the world and to the history of my country. I felt necessary, and that’s the best feeling a human being can have.”

“…about how understanding your village helps you understand the world.”

“I could see in his eyes that he desired me, even though, at the time, I was nearly twice the age of you now.”

“It was as if he’d understood with his ear what I was thinking, and wanted to tell me that it was true, that I was very important to him. For some time, we said nothing, and then we said good-bye.”

“…he’d given me everything he had kept to himself through out his whole life: his struggles, his hoys, his difficulties, and his dreams. “

“That afternoon I gave myself wholly as well –I was his companion, his wife, his audience, his lover. In a matter of only a few hours, I experience the love of a lifetime.”

“But the heart’s a mysterious thing.”

“Ill never forget: finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.”

“I could love him with such strength and such certainty, because I would never lose him; he had given himself to me entirely that afternoon.”

“God had almost been explained away: He was our generous Father, and we were all saved.”

“She needed love and understanding, because she, too, knew stories she could tell no one.”

“Love was above everything else, and there was no hatred in love, only the occasional mistake.”

“Being human means having doubts and yet still continuing on your path.”

“I’m afraid of death, but even more afraid of wasting my life. I’m afraid of love, because it involves things that are beyond our understanding: it sheds such a brilliant light, but the shadow it casts frightens me.”

“I must be very old; I’m starting to imagine conversations.”

“She still took care of her appearance, because she knew how pretty she was. She didn’t need to neglect her beauty in order to prove that she was also intelligent and capable.”

“If they were to remain together, they would each, from time to time, have to enter the other reality.”

“Before fire became a powerful element in the rituals of witchcraft, it had been merely a source of light.”

“…it only takes a few people to spoil the general mood [of a party].”

“Those people think they’re more important than the others; they’re hard to please; they think they’re wasting their time because they can’t make contact with anyone else.”

“Remember, the first road to God is prayer, the second is joy.”

“And when two men are in love with the same woman, its better that they hate each other than that they become friends. Because, if that happened, she would end up losing then both.”

“I’m proud of my body because its manifestation of God in the visible world.”

“There was no reason behind what she was doing; she was doing it simply because nakedness was the only way to show how free her soul was at the moment.”

“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemed to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”

“…but he was a man, and a man always looks at a woman’s body.”

“…each person was obliged to learn what he needed to learn and not what he wanted to learn.”

“For the hand of God always guides those who follow their paths with faith.”

“Anyone not already following their own path would begin to feel dissatisfied with themselves and be forced to make a choice: they would either have to accept an existence beset with disappointment and pain or else come to realize that every one was born to be happy.”

“Everyone had a Gift, but [others] they choose not to see it.”

“You can only be close to people if you are one of them.”

“Never be afraid of making mistakes.”

“…because the brace are those who make decisions despite their fear, who are tormented by the Devil every step of the way and gripped by anxiety about their every action, wondering if they are right or wrong. And yet nevertheless, they act.”

“People give flowers as presents because flowers contain the true meaning of Love. Anyone who tries to posses a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in a filed, you will keep it forever, because the flower is part of the evening and the sunset and the smell of damp earth and the clouds on the horizon.”

“That you will never be mine, and that is why I will never lose you. You were my hope during my days of loneliness, my anxiety during moments of doubts, my certainty during moments of faith.”

“I will always remember now that love is liberty.”

“I will always remember you, and you will remember me, just as we will remember the evening, the rain in the windows, and all the things we’ll always have because we cannot posses them.”

“Never forget me.”