Paulo Coelho Quotes

I think that there is a tragic misfit at the core of me, and I've just done a lot of work on myself. I love a good self-help book; I've read a ton of them. I love self-help seminars and therapy and all that. I think that probably, at my core, if I had done no work on myself, I would probably be Laura from The Mysteries Of Laura, but I worked hard to be a more stable person because that's what I wanted out of my life.

I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do.

Our accepting what we are must always inhibit our being what we ought to be.

The stories I want to tell are when we're our own heroes and our own enemies, and I don't think that's a rude thing to ask for. I don't think that's something I should apologize for.

The Ideal is in thyself, the impediments too is in thyself.

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity.

Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing.

But we are mostly what we are, and the turtle stretching toward delicious buds on high does not lighten his carapace by his resolve.

Self improvement is masturbation.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.

I am just like you and everyone else. I am trying to live my life as best I can.

I've been through so much of my own self-search that I'm not as consumed with who I am as I used to be.

Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

I sometimes truly despair at ever being meaningfully altered and affected by the things I claim are so important to me.

Before you can do something you must first be something.

The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.

We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

Know that you are your greatest enemy, but also your greatest friend.

I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.

It only seems that there is something more important for you to do than to just quietly be yourself.

Learn what you are and be such.

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately.

Your life is meant for you to understand and process, not to make anyone else happy.