Paulo Coelho - Manuscript Found in Accra

Love is an act of faith in another person, not an act of surrender.

Do not seek to be loved at any price, because Love has no price.

Your friends are not the kind who attract everyone’s gaze, who dazzle and say: “There is no one better, more generous, or more virtuous in the whole of Jerusalem.”

Your friends are the sort who do not wait for things to happen in order to decide which attitude to take; they decide on the spur of the moment, even though they know it could be risky.

They are free spirits who can change direction whenever life requires them to. They explore new paths, recount their adventures, and thus enrich both city and village.

If they once took a wrong and dangerous path, they will never come to you and say: “Don’t ever do that.”

They will merely say: “I once took a wrong and dangerous path.”

This is because they respect your freedom, just as you respect theirs.

Avoid at all costs those who are only by your side in moments of sadness to offer consoling words. What they are actually saying to themselves is: “I am stronger. I am wiser. I would not have taken that step.”

Stay close to those who are by your side in happy times, because they do not harbor jealousy or envy in their hearts, only joy to see you happy.

Avoid those who believe they are stronger than you, because they are actually concealing their own fragility.

Stay close to those who are not afraid to be vulnerable, because they have confidence in themselves and know that, at some point in our lives, we all stumble; they do not interpret this as a sign of weakness, but of humanity.

Avoid those who talk a great deal before acting, those who never take a step without being quite sure that it will bring them respect.

Stay close to those who, when you made a mistake, never said: “I would have done it differently.” They did not make that particular mistake and so are in no position to judge.

Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.

Stay close to those who are interested in opening only one important door: the door to your heart. They will never invade your soul without your consent or shoot a deadly arrow through that open door.

Friendship is like a river; it flows around rocks, adapts itself to valleys and mountains, occasionally turns into a pool until the hollow in the ground is full and it can continue on its way.

Just as the river never forgets that its goal is the sea, so friendship never forgets that its only reason for existing is to love other people.

Avoid those who say: “That’s it, I’ll go no further.” What they have failed to grasp is that neither life nor death has an end; they are merely stages of eternity.

Stay close to those who say: “Everything’s fine as it is, but we still need to move on.” They understand the need to keep going beyond the known horizon.

Avoid those who meet up to discuss, seriously and pretentiously, any decisions that the community needs to take. They understand politics, they impress others and try to show how wise they are. What they don’t understand is that it is impossible to control so much as the fall of a single hair on your head. Discipline is important, but it needs to leave doors and windows open to intuition and the unexpected.

Stay close to those who sing, tell stories, and enjoy life, and whose eyes sparkle with happiness. Because happiness is contagious and will always manage to find a solution, whereas logic can find only an explanation for the mistake made.

Stay close to those who allow the light of Love to shine forth without restrictions, judgments, or rewards, without letting it be blocked by the fear of being misunderstood.

No matter how you are feeling, get up every morning and prepare to let your light shine forth.

Those with eyes to see will see your light and be enchanted by it.

A young woman, who rarely left her house because she thought no one was interested in her, said:

“Teach us about elegance.”

Everyone in the courtyard muttered:

“What kind of question is that to ask when we are about to be invaded, when blood will soon be running down every street in the city?”

However, the Copt smiled, and his smile was not a mocking one, but filled with respect for the young woman’s courage .

And he answered:

Elegance tends to be mistaken for superficiality and mere appearance. Nothing could be further from the truth; some words are elegant, some can wound and destroy, but all are written with the same letters. Flowers are elegant, even when hidden among the grasses in a meadow. The gazelle when it runs is elegant, even when it is fleeing from a lion.

Elegance is not an outer quality, but a part of the soul that is visible to others.

And even when passions run high, elegance does not allow the real ties binding two people to be broken.

Elegance lies not in the clothes we wear, but in the way we wear them.

It isn’t in the way we wield a sword, but in the dialogue we hold that could avoid a war.

Elegance is achieved when, having discarded all superfluous things, we discover simplicity and concentration. The simpler the pose, the better; the more sober, the more beautiful.

And what is simplicity? It is the coming together of the true values of life.

Snow is pretty because it has only one color.

The sea is pretty because it appears to be a flat plane.

The desert is beautiful because it seems to consist only of sand and rocks.

However, when we look more closely at each of these things, we discover how profound and complete they are, and recognize their qualities.

The simplest things in life are the most extraordinary. Let them reveal themselves.

Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. And yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The nearer the heart comes to simplicity, the more capable it is of loving freely and without fear. The more fearlessly it loves, the more capable it is of revealing elegance in its every gesture.

Elegance is not a matter of good taste. Every culture has its own idea of beauty, which is often completely different from ours.

But every tribe, every people, has values that they associate with elegance: hospitality, respect, good manners.

Arrogance attracts hatred and envy. Elegance arouses respect and Love.

Arrogance causes us to humiliate our fellow man or woman. Elegance teaches us to walk in the light.

Arrogance complicates words, because it believes that intelligence is for only the chosen few. Elegance transforms complex thoughts into something that everyone can understand.

When we are walking our chosen path, we walk elegantly, emanating light.

Our steps are firm, our gaze keen, our movements beautiful. And even at the most difficult moments, our adversaries can see no signs of weakness, because our elegance protects us.

Elegance is accepted and admired because it makes no effort to be elegant.

Only Love gives form to what, once, we could not even dream of.

And only elegance allows that form to be made manifest.

And a man who always woke up early to take his flocks to the pastures around the city said: