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
Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.
Interpretation
Love is an abundant force that cannot be controlled or contained.
This quote by Paulo Coelho emphasizes the nature of love as a free-flowing and boundless emotion. It suggests that love exists for its own sake, cannot be owned or possessed, and that any attempts to limit or control it will ultimately lead to its deterioration, much like water that becomes stagnant when trapped. Coelho uses the imagery of a river to illustrate love's intrinsic quality of overflow and the inherent danger of trying to confine it.
In practice
During a wedding ceremony to emphasize the importance of unconditional love.
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.
My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.
What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.
He wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything except herself.
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.
All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice’s hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren’t hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.
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