The Alchemist

 

The Alchemist

By

Paulo Coelho

 

This book is an English version of O Alquimista, the Portuguese original edition, published in Brazil in 1988 by Paulo Coelho. This edition was prepared in English by Alan R. Clarke in consultation with Paulo Coelho. The book hit the New York Times bestseller list, an important milestone for any author, and stayed there for more than three hundred weeks. It has since been translated into more than eighty different languages, the most translated book by any living author, and is widely considered one of the ten best books of the twentieth century

THE BOY’S NAME In this book WAS SANTIAGO

“A river bank is weeping for a boy named Narcissus (who was drowned in the river),  not that the boy was beautiful, but because, each time he knelt beside the banks, the river could see, in the depths of his eyes, her own beauty reflected.”

“Shepherds, like seamen and like traveling salesmen and usually they learn more from sheep than from books,”

They (Sheep) were content with just food and water, and, in exchange, they generously gave of their wool, their company, and—once in a while—their meat. They don’t even realize that they’re walking a new road every day. They don’t see that the fields are new and the seasons change. All they think about is food and water.

Gypsies; They also travelled, but they had no flocks of sheep. People said that Gypsies spent their lives tricking others. It was also said that they had a pact with the devil, and that they kidnapped children and, taking them away to their mysterious camps, made them their slaves.     

·       When someone sees the same people every day, they wind up becoming a part of that person’s life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

·       At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.

·       At that point (young age) in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.

·       There is a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.

·       When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

·       Sometimes it’s better to leave things as they are, to say nothing. If one were to say anything, to the other persons which he/she is of no clue or idea, they also would spend days thinking about giving it all up, even though they had gotten used to the way things were.

·       People fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives.

·       At times we feel jealous of others. It is like feeling jealous about the freedom of the wind.

·       When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. “Beginner’s luck.”

·       God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you.

·       The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon (goals and responsibilities) which you are carrying.

·       Whoever has money is never really alone.

·       There is no place called such as a strange place; All it was a new one and need to explore rather worrying.

·       If I can learn to understand a language without words, I can learn to understand the world.

The Prophet gave Muslims the Koran, and left them with just five obligations to satisfy during their lives. 1) The most important is to believe only in the one True God. The others are 2) To Pray Five times a day, 3) Fast during Ramadan, and 4) Be Charitable to the poor. 5) The Fifth obligation of every Muslim is a pilgrimage. They are obliged, at least once in their lives, to visit the Holy city of Mecca.

·       I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.

·       I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am.

Maktub means - ‘It is written’

·       There was a language in the world that everyone understood. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.

·       Sometimes we worked years to make a dream come true, and that dream as we accomplish almost, minute by minute, may become less important. May be because that wasn’t our real dream.

·       Many a times we want to switch back to our earlier paths as we feel comfortable and worried of the new paths which we are exploring and walked-thru half-way.

·       Everything in life is an omen

·       There is an universal language, understood by everybody, but already forgotten – a man who knows that universal language is An Alchemist.

·       In the desert (army or a subject under dictator) , disobedience means death.

·       We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

·       We make a lot of detours, but we’re always heading for the same destination in the life.

·       The face of the earth had a soul, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal—or even just a simple thought.

Alchemists: They were men who had dedicated their entire lives to the purification of metals in their laboratories; they believed that, if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the Soul of the World. This Soul of the World allowed them to understand anything on the face of the earth, because it was the language with which all things communicated. They called that discovery the Master Work— it was part liquid and part solid.

The liquid part of the Master Work was called the Elixir of Life, and that it cured all illnesses; it also kept the alchemist from growing old. And the solid part was called the Philosopher’s Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone has a fascinating property. A small sliver of the stone can transform large quantities of metal into gold.

They (Alchemists) discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.

·       If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man (with the lessons of past and the dreams of the future).

·       When you are in love, things make even more sense.

Why we are so interested in the future (in the form of Astrology)?

“So that, we can change those things that we don’t want to happen.”

But then they wouldn’t be a part of our future?

“Well, maybe we just want to know the future so we can prepare ourself for what’s coming.”

If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise, if bad things are coming , and we know in advance, we will suffer greatly before they even occur.

·       Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World

·       Life attracts life.

A woman of the desert knows that she must await her man.

·       If you do not listen and follow the omens, they will abandon you, because you’ve stopped listening to them.

The desert would represent only one thing: the hope.

Men of deserts dream more about coming home than about leaving,

·       Heart:  There had been times when  heart spent hours telling of its sadness, and at other times it became so emotional, heart beat fastest when it spoke the optimism and more slowly when it feels pessimism, but heart was never quiet

·       At times Heart is a traitor

·       it’s Fear/Afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.

·       People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.

·       Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity

·       All people who are happy have God within them.  

A grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. “Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,”  “We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them—the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

·       In the desert One dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.

·       “Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.” It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

·       When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

·       If we and our heart had become friends, neither was capable of betraying the other.

·       Your eyes show the strength of your soul.

·       Alchemy. It is about penetrating to the Soul of the World, and discovering the treasure that has been reserved for you.

·       The sea has lived on in shell.

·       Don’t give in to your fears, If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.

·       There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

·       The world is only the visible aspect of God.

Nourish the falcon. And the falcon then nourishes man. And, eventually, man will nourish desert sands, where the game will once again flourish. The game becomes the falcon, the falcon become man, and man, in his turn, the desert. It’s what turns lead into gold, and makes the gold return to the earth.

·       Wind blow across the world without a birthplace, and with no place to die.

The wind has many names. In the desert part of the world, it was called the sirocco, because it brought moisture from the oceans to the east. In the distant land, they called it the levanter, because they believed that it brought with it the sands of the desert, and the screams of the Moorish wars. Perhaps, in the places beyond the pastures , men thought that the wind came from Green fields.  The desert men called it the simum, and it was worse than a storm at sea. But actually, the wind came from no place at all, nor did it go to any place; that’s why it was stronger than the desert. Someone might one day plant trees in the desert, and even raise sheep there, but never would they harness the wind.

Wind created deserts, sank ships, felled entire forests, and blew through cities filled with music and strange noises. It felt that it had no limits,

·       When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.

“Sun can see the Soul of the World. They communicate each with soul, and together they cause the plants to grow and the sheep to seek out shade. Sun is a long way from the earth - they learned how to love. They know that if they came even a little bit closer, everything on earth would die, and the Soul of the World would no longer exist. So, they contemplate each other, and they want each other, and Sun gives it life and warmth, and earth gives Sun the  reason for living.”

Only the minerals and vegetables understand that all things are one. That there’s no need for iron to be the same as copper, or copper the same as gold. Each performs its own exact function as a unique being, and everything would be a symphony of peace

Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold.

·       When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.

“It’s not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it’s not love to see everything from a distance.  Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World.  Soul of the World was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”

If one reaches to the Soul of the World, he/she can see that it was a part of the Soul of God. And realize that the Soul of God was his/her own soul. And he/she can perform miracles.

·       Life might be listening, and give you less the next time, if you do not speak positively.

Superstitious Arab, proverb says, “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’”

·       Where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.

·       No project is completed until its objective has been achieved.

in Egypt, the scarab beetles are a symbol of God.

An inspirational companion to The Alchemist that invites us to live out our dreams, to embrace the uncertainty of life, and to rise to meet our own unique destiny.

“That my Personal Legend, to use a term from Alchemy, was to write.”

Paulo Coelho once said that following your dream is like learning a foreign language; you will make mistakes but you will get there in the end. In 1988, he published The Alchemist, a novel that explores this theme, and it launched him as an international bestselling author. Specifically, Paulo Coelho is recognized for his powerful storytelling technique and the profound spiritual insights he blends seamlessly into his parables. His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. A winner of numerous literary prizes, he has been a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002. Paulo Coelho is also a prominent speaker for humanitarian causes.

Chandrasekhar Channapragada

13th September 2025

Bengaluru