Excerpt: Manuscript Found in Accra (Part II)

Help us to recognize the only one that is worth following: the one on which  
Love is to be found. - Paulo Coelho

Warning: This blog post contains spoilers. Please do not read on if you don't want to be spoiled especially for those who are planning to read this book.


Here are some extracts that I've highlighted:

- For most people, generosity consists only in giving, and yet receiving is also an act of love. Allowing someone else to make us happy will make them happy, too.

- Everything that is spiritual manifests itself in visible form, and everything that is visible is transformed into spiritual energy.

- Because friendship is one of the many faces of Love, and Love is not swayed by opinions; Love accepts its companion unconditionally and allows each to grow in his or her own way.

- Friendship is like a river; it flows around rocks, adapts itself to valleys and mountains, occasionally turns into a pool until the hollow in the ground is full and it can continue on its way. Just as the river never forgets that its goal is the sea, so friendship never forgets that its only reason for existing is to love other people.

- Stay close to those who sing, tell stories, and enjoy life, and whose eyes sparkle with happiness. Because happiness is contagious and will always manage to find a solution, whereas logic can find only an explanation for

the mistake made.

- Elegance is not an outer quality, but a part of the soul that is visible to others.

- Elegance is achieved when, having discarded all superfluous things, we discover simplicity and concentration. The simpler the pose, the better; the more sober, the more beautiful. And what is simplicity? It is the coming together of the

true values of life.

- The simplest things in life are the most extraordinary.

Let them reveal themselves.

- The nearer the heart comes to simplicity, the more capable it is of loving freely and without fear. The more fearlessly it loves, the more capable it is of revealing elegance in its every gesture.

- Elegance is accepted and admired because it makes no

effort to be elegant.

- Fate is never unfair to anyone. We are all free to love or hate what we do.

- Success does not come from having one’s work recognized by others. It is the fruit of a seed that you lovingly planted.

- Success comes to those who do not waste time comparing what they are doing with what others are doing; it enters the house of the person who says “I will do my best” every day.

- Do not try to make the road shorter, but travel it in such a way that every action leaves the land more fertile and the landscape more beautiful.

- ..but a miracle goes beyond even that; it’s something that suddenly fills our hearts with Love. When that happens, we feel a profound reverence for the grace God has bestowed on us.

- Help us to know that when our legs are tired, we can keep walking, thanks to the strength in our hearts, and that when our hearts are tired, we can still carry on, thanks to the strength of our Faith.

- Help us to be humble when we receive and joyful when we give.

- Help us to recognize the only one that is worth following: the one on which Love is to be found.

- May our eyes open so that we can see that no two days are ever the same. Each one brings with it a different miracle, which allows us to go on breathing, dreaming, and walking in the sun.

- Because as long as we are intensely connected to the present moment, we will always be waiting anxiously for someone or something.

- although anxiety is part of life, never let it control you.

- ..but the great wisdom of life is to realize that we can be the masters of the things that try to enslave us.

- We must love. I am not speaking only of love for another person. Loving means being open to miracles, to victories and defeats, to everything that happens each day that was given us to walk upon the face of the Earth.

- But those who truly want the best for us want us to be happy, even if they can’t understand what we are doing, and even if, at first, they try to stop us from going ahead by means of threats, promises, and tears.

- But if a man understands that he is worthy of what he has struggled so long for, he will realize that he did not get there alone and must respect the Hand that led him.

- The true friend is not the one who says: “You wounded me today, and I am sad.” He says: “You wounded me today for reasons unknown to me and possibly to you as well, but tomorrow I know that I will be able to count on your help. And so I will not be sad.”

- We will all have to face many adversaries in our lives, but the most difficult to defeat will be the ones we fear.

- But do not fight in order to prove that you are right, or to impose your ideas or ideals on someone else. Accept the fight only as a way of keeping your spirit clean and your will spotless.

- Never repay hatred with hatred, but with justice. The world does not divide into enemies and friends, but into the weak and the strong.


See previous post Excerpt: Manuscript Found in Accra (Part I)