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
There's a lot of me in it. But the character is more egotistical. I'm also egotistical, but not the way the character is. This guy is successful, he has everything, but his wife has left him. The most important value - love - is missing. What is wrong with this institution called 'marriage'? What is wrong with this institution called 'the pursuit of happiness'?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the emptiness of success without love and questions societal institutions like marriage and the pursuit of happiness.
In this quote, Paulo Coelho examines the disconnect between material success and personal fulfillment, specifically highlighting how the character's achievements are overshadowed by the absence of love and companionship. Coelho probes deeper into the nature of marriage and the broader societal belief that happiness can be attained through success, suggesting that true contentment is often rooted in meaningful relationships rather than superficial accomplishments.
Themes
SuccessLoveHappinessRelationshipsMarriage
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the meaning of success in a marriage counseling session.
More from Paulo Coelho
All quotes βEach 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.
Paulo CoelhoRead
We need to clear our minds of bad thoughts.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way of showing that we trust in God.
Paulo CoelhoRead
The fool who loves giving advice on our garden never tends his own plants
Paulo CoelhoRead
Sometimes the Warrior feels as if he were living two lives at once.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Similar quotes
Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked, it means that you must be treating people with respect and you must be showing kindness toward them.
Queen Rania Of JordanRead
A lot of guys are very intimidated by an attractive woman, and they dehumanise her because our culture perceives beautiful women as commodities. But I think if you're able walk up to a person and get to know them, and you see their flaws and their impurities, and realise that they're like you, then you can humanise them again.
Neil StraussRead
Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
Walker PercyRead
Male and female have the power to fuse into one solid, both because both are nourished in both and because soul is the same thing in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.
HippocratesRead
You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.
Richard SikenRead
We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.
Richard BachRead