I'm not doing anything, and yet I'm also doing the most important thing a man can do: I'm listening to what I needed to hear from myself.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Certain people, in their eagerness to construct a world no external threat can penetrate build exaggeratedly high defense againts the outside world, againts new people, new places, different experiences and leave their own world stripped bare. It is there that bitterness begins irrevocable work.
Interpretation
Isolation can lead to bitterness when we shut ourselves off from new experiences and people.
In this quote, Paulo Coelho highlights the danger of becoming overly defensive and closed off to the world, as it can lead to a barren existence devoid of meaningful connections and experiences. By constructing walls against potential threats, individuals may inadvertently cultivate bitterness and deprive themselves of growth and fulfillment that comes from embracing the diversity of life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing new challenges.
I'm not doing anything, and yet I'm also doing the most important thing a man can do: I'm listening to what I needed to hear from myself.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
We need to clear our minds of bad thoughts.
Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way of showing that we trust in God.
The fool who loves giving advice on our garden never tends his own plants
Sometimes the Warrior feels as if he were living two lives at once.
There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
If the Lord should give you power to raise the dead, He would give much less than He does when he bestows suffering. By miracles you would make yourself debtor to Him, while by suffering He may become debtor to you. And even if sufferings had no other reward than being able to bear something for that God who loves you, is not this a great reward and a sufficient remuneration? Whoever loves, understands what I say.
One of the the great things about having had something that didn't work out is: So what? I am fine.
Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.
Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.
You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.