Paulo Coelho

By Paulo Coelho

The Warrior of Light remembers the past.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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By Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light often loses heart.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet

By Paulo Coelho

Many years ago, in a poor Chinese village, there lived a farmer and his son. His only material possession, apart from the land and a small hut, was a horse he had inherited from his father.
 
One day, the horse ran away, leaving the man with no animal with which to work the land. His neighbours, who respected him for his honesty and diligence, went to his house to say how much they regretted his loss. He thanked them for their visit, but asked:
 
‘How do you know that what happened was a misfortune in my life?’
 
Someone muttered to a friend: ‘He obviously doesn’t want to face facts, but let him think what he likes, after all, it’s better than being sad about it.’
 
And the neighbours went away again, pretending to agree with what he had said.
 
A week later, the horse returned to its stable, but it was not alone; it brought with it a beautiful mare for company. The inhabitants of the village were thrilled when they heard the news, for only then did they understand the reply the man had given them, and they went back to the farmer’s house to congratulate him on his good fortune.
 
‘Instead of one horse, you’ve got two. Congratulations!’ they said.
 
‘Many thanks for your visit and for your solidarity,’ replied the farmer. ‘But how do you know that what happened was a blessing in my life?’
 
The neighbours were rather put out and decided that the man must be going mad, and, as they left, they said: ‘Doesn’t the man realise that the horse is a gift from God?’
 
A month later, the farmer’s son decided to break the mare in. However, the animal bucked wildly and threw the boy off; the boy fell awkwardly and broke his leg.
 
The neighbours returned to the farmer’s house, bringing presents for the injured boy. The mayor of the village solemnly presented his condolences to the father, saying how sad they all were about what had occurred.
 
The man thanked them for their visit and for their kindness, but he asked:
 
‘How do you know that what happened was a misfortune in my life?’
 
These words left everyone dumbstruck, because they were all quite sure that the son’s accident was a real tragedy. As they left the farmer’s house, they said to each other: ‘Now he really has gone mad; his only son could be left permanently crippled, and he’s not sure whether the accident was a misfortune or not!’
 
A few months went by, and Japan declared war on China. The emperor’s emissaries scoured the country for healthy young men to be sent to the front. When they reached the village, they recruited all the young men, except the farmer’s son, whose leg had not yet mended.
 
None of the young men came back alive. The son recovered, and the two horses produced foals that were all sold for a good price. The farmer went to visit his neighbours to console and to help them, since they had always shown him such solidarity. Whenever any of them complained, the farmer would say: ‘How do you know that what happened was a misfortune?’ If someone was overjoyed about something, he would ask: ‘How do you know that what happened was a blessing?’ And the people of the village came to understand that life has other meanings that go beyond mere appearance.

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DAVOS, January 25 (RIA Novosti) – Famous Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho said on Friday the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort town of Davos was more about talking than predicting.
 
Political and business leaders from more than 80 countries started annual talks in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday amid fears that U.S. economic problems could spark a global recession.
 
A regular at the Davos, Coelho, 60, described it as a "neutral forum where you can talk openly about any important issue without being bound by protocol."
 
"Nostradamus was even more accurate than economists today. Nobody knows. They are here to talk, though nobody really can predict what will happen in six months from now," the Brazilian author said.
 
Coelho praised the forum’s founder, Professor Klaus Schwab, for adapting the forum to the moving world.
 
Professor Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, set up the forum in 1971, which is now "a powerful intellectual group" and one of the world’s largest annual political and business summits.
 
Sharing his impressions of Russia, where the writer recently travelled from Moscow to Vladivostok in the country’s Far East, Coelho said, "Russia has recuperated its entity now,…and of course this may be considered as a threat, but who thinks like this is so stupid."
 
Asked about his artistic plans, Coelho said he was not currently writing anything and was just planning "to stay alive."
 
Coelho’s new book Brida will be published in Russia in March 2008.
 
From : en.rian.ru

By Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light always keeps his heart free of any feelings of hatred.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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How many of your characters have you met in your real life?
 
A pilgrimage was my rite of passage. All of a sudden, walking during 56 days from France to Santiago de Compostela, in 1986, I realized that the connection with God was simpler than I thought, and that was better to, instead of trying to understand why am I here, start being here and accepting that God must have a reason for that. I my case, I always thought of being a writer, but I was 38 years then, and I thought it was too late. However, at the end of the pilgrimage, I said to myself: if you want to be here, you need to fight for your dreams. And I decided to write my first book. After a pilgrimage like this, everybody may be a character, or part of a character in my books.

We’ve been seeing more and more examples lately of content creators recognizing how they benefit from giving away their content for free. What’s most amusing, however, is that every time we point out an example, people work extra hard explaining why that case is a special case. When we discussed less-well-known musicians giving away music, we were told that it would never work for megastars. When we discussed megastars giving away music, we were told it would never work for indie musicians. The same is true in other areas as well. When we recently wrote about an author giving his book away for free, someone angrily emailed to let us know that this only made sense because no one had ever heard of that author — so it was purely a promotional effort by a new author.

Yet, apparently, it also works for well-known authors. TorrentFreak points us to the news that Paulo Coelho is such a fan of giving his book away for free that he’s even set up his own blog called Pirate Coehlo where he points to where you can download various translations of his best selling book The Alchemist. Coelho explained all of this in a recent talk he gave:


Link: sevenload.com

What Coelho quickly discovered was that the more his book was available for free, the more sales of the actual book increased. As an example, he cites the Russian translation of his book, where it went from only 1,000 sales to well over 100,000 in a period of two years, and has only continued to grow since then. It’s yet another good example of someone embracing how giving away content for free can help them earn more money. And, it highlights (again) that, whether you’re well known or a nobody, you can use these tactics to your advantage.

Digg this : Alchemist Author Pirates His Own Books
 

By Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light cannot always choose his battlefield.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet

By Paulo Coelho

A rabbi spent his whole life teaching that all the answers to our questions are in ourselves, but his congregation insisted on consulting him about everything they did.
 
One day, the rabbi had an idea. He placed a notice on the door of his house, saying:
 
‘Answers to questions – 100 moedas per answer.’
 
A shopkeeper decided to pay the one hundred moedas. He gave the rabbi the money and said:
 
‘Don’t you think that’s rather a lot to charge for a question?’
 
‘Yes, I do,’ said the rabbi. ‘And I have just answered your question. If you want to know anything else, you’ll have to pay another one hundred moedas, or else look for the answer inside yourself, which is far cheaper and much more efficient.’
 
From then on, no one bothered him.

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In The Valkyries, you have called yourself a wizard. Are you, in reality, a practitioner of magic?
 
Everybody is a magus-another important lesson from the Road to Santiago. The thing is: nobody accepts that she/he has gifts and powers. In magic, there are two traditions: the moon and the sun. The first is accumulation of knowledge and the second is revelation. In my youth, I used to practice traditional rituals, till I realized that I””and everybody””know everything. It is just an act of will to open ourselves to the Soul of the World.

By Paulo Coelho

A responsible Warrior is one who has proved able to observe and to learn.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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By Paulo Coelho

 
A certain rabbi was adored by everyone in his community, who were all enchanted with everything he said.
 
Apart from Isaac, that is, who never missed an opportunity to contradict the rabbi’s interpretations and point out errors in his teaching. The others were disgusted by Isaac’s behaviour, but could do nothing about it.
 
One day, Isaac died. During the funeral, the community noticed that the rabbi was looking very sad.
 
‘Why so sad?’ asked someone. ‘He found fault with everything you did!’
 
‘I’m not sad for my friend, who is now in heaven,’ replied the rabbi. ‘I am sad for myself. While you all revered me, he challenged me, and so I was forced to improve. Now that he’s gone, I’m afraid I might stop growing.’

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You wrote that you even dabbled in black magic. What brought you out of it?
 
It is written in the book: I was dealing with forces that I was not familiar with, and with total irresponsibility. But God is merciful, and gave me a tough lesson.

What is the driving force in your life?
Love,
Paulo

Paulo Coelho (seminal author of books like, “The Alchemist” and “Veronika Decides to Die”) gave a great, compelling keynote at DLD, which for me, was one of the highlights. The man simply oozes charisma and wisdom.
 
Unlike Martha, he’d thought about his audience and gave a speech that we would find both relevant and interesting.
 
His main theme was that copyright is a lost battle and that we should accept that and live with the consequences in the new world. Moreover, this isn’t something we should grieve over and regret, but that all content creators could use this to our advantage.
 
He doesn’t just pay lip service to this sentiment, but has used the philosophy very astutely to create considerable commercial advantage for himself (and his publishers).
 
His learning went like this. First, he published a free downloadable book in 2001; “Stories for parents, children and grandchildren” showing quite an early awareness of the web and its possibilities for a non-geek. He describes it as his least read book, despite getting millions of downloads. People download, but don’t read he thinks and no one has ever talked to him about the book!
 
Next, he found a pirate version of The Alchemist in Russia, where we was selling only 1,000 copies of the book each year. With nothing to lose, he used the pirate version himself to create a free download. The next year, he sold 10,000 and the next 100,000 copies of the book itself. Nothing else had changed, so he sees the free download as a sampling exercise. People download, read a bit and if they like it, they go buy a book.
 
These days, he’s more structured in his approach. He finds pirated versions of his work in different languages and tells people about them via his alternative blog “Pirate Coelho”, which he promotes via his official blog. He also allegedly leaks drafts of official translations onto Pirate Coelho too.
 
He claims this has dramatically increased worldwide sales and as a best-selling author with 100 million books to his name, it’s hard to see how his blase attitude to ownership of his intellectual property has done him any harm. Besides which, the goal of most writers is actually to be read first and foremost. Any money you make (or “lose” through piracy) is mostly secondary.
 
He also told an amusing story of a blog post he wrote, inviting the first 10 readers who emailed him to a party he holds every year on March 19th. The party was held in an obscure corner of Spain, so he was surprised to get replies from places like Japan, Qatar and Iraq.
 
He wrote to the ten people clarifying that it was just a 2 hour party and that he wasn’t paying for flights or accommodation or expenses in any way. But they all came anyway – the Japanese lady had never even left Japan before!
 
A great man.
 
Posted by Russell Buckley

Read the new issues from “Warrior of the Light Online” :
 
Edition nº 164 : The moving monument
 
Edií§í£o nº 164 : O monumento mutante
 
Edición nº 164 : El monumento mutante
 
Édition nº 164 : Le monument en mouvement
 
Edizione nº 164 : Il monumento mutante