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
Being equally convinced that aggression and rudeness are synonymous with having a "powerful personality."
Interpretation
Aggression and rudeness are often mistakenly seen as indicators of strength and personality.
In this quote, Paulo Coelho critiques the common misconception that aggressive or rude behavior equates to having a strong or powerful personality. He suggests that true strength lies in kindness and respect, rather than in intimidating or belittling others.
In practice
Using this quote in a leadership seminar to discuss the importance of empathy over aggression.
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.
I am a black American, I say, and thus announce my atavistic connection to all others who live as black Americans, to all who ever lived as black Americans. Religion, caste, class, gender and race can all be atavisms, and they are inherently anti-democratic because they exclude all outside the atavism.
May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is the Father, Son and Spirit.
Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.
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