Alchemist Famous Quotes

The resignations infuriated Elizabeth and Sunny. The following day, they summoned the staff for an all-hands meeting in the cafeteria. Copies of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho’s famous novel about an Andalusian shepherd boy who finds his destiny by going on a journey to Egypt, had been placed on every chair. Still visibly angry, Elizabeth told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there were any among them who didn’t believe, they should leave. Sunny put it more bluntly: anyone not prepared to show complete devotion and unmitigated loyalty to the company should “get the fuck out.

important, founding concepts of telepathy was enunciated by Paracelsus (1493?-1541), the famous (some said infamous) Swiss physician, chemist, and alchemist, whose egotism and contempt for traditional theories earned him the enmity of his learned contemporaries. Even so, he gained

The following morning, after those goals were met, Marcus and I were back on the road, off to the Potato State. “Gem State,” Marcus corrected when he heard me call it that on our drive. “What?” “Idaho’s the Gem State, not the Potato State.” “Are you sure?” I asked, making no attempt to hide my skepticism. “I hear about Idaho potatoes all the time. No one’s ever like, ‘Wow, my engagement ring has a rare Idaho diamond in it.’” A smile played on his lips as he kept his eyes on the road. “Pretty sure,” he said. I wasn’t masochistic enough to argue random trivia with a former Alchemist, but when we crossed the border into Idaho and started seeing license plates that said FAMOUS POTATOES, I felt pretty confident about who was in the right on this topic.

The book that most interested the boy told the stories of the famous alchemists. They were men who had dedicated their entire lives to the purification of metals in their laboratories; they believed that, if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the Soul of the World. This Soul of the World allowed them to understand anything on the face of the earth, because it was the language with which all things communicated. They called that discovery the Master Work—it was part liquid and part solid. “Can’t you just observe men and omens in order to understand the language?” the boy asked. “You have a mania for simplifying everything,” answered the Englishman, irritated. “Alchemy is a serious discipline. Every step has to be followed exactly as it was followed by the masters.” The boy learned that the liquid part of the Master Work was called the Elixir of Life, and that it cured all illnesses; it also kept the alchemist from growing old. And the solid part was called the Philosopher’s Stone. “It’s not easy to find the Philosopher’s Stone,” said the Englishman. “The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.

Early on, advocates of big bang cosmology realized that the universe is evolutionary. In the words of one famous cosmologist, George Gamov, “We conclude that the relative abundances of atomic species represent the most ancient archaeological document pertaining to the history of the universe.” In other words, the periodic table is evidence of the evolution of matter, and atoms can testify to the history of the cosmos. But early versions of big bang cosmology held that all the elements of the universe were fused in one fell swoop. As Gamov puts it, “These abundances …” meaning the ratio of the elements (heaps of hydrogen, hardly any gold—that kind of thing), “… must have been established during the earliest stages of expansion, when the temperature of the primordial matter was still sufficiently high to permit nuclear transformations to run through the entire range of chemical elements.” It was a neat idea, but very wrong. Only hydrogen, helium, and a dash of lithium could have formed in the big bang. All of the elements heavier than lithium were made much later, by being fused in evolving and exploding stars. How do we know this? Because at the same time some scholars were working on the big bang theory, others were trying to ditch the big bang altogether. Its association with thermonuclear devices made it seem hasty, and its implied mysterious origins tainted it with creationism. And so, a rival camp of cosmologists developed an alternate theory: the Steady State. The Steady State held that the universe had always existed. And always will. Matter is created out of the vacuum of space itself. Steady State theorists, working against the big bang and its flaws, were obliged to wonder where in the cosmos the chemical elements might have been cooked up, if not in the first few minutes of the universe. Their answer: in the furnaces of the very stars themselves. They found a series of nuclear chain reactions at work in the stars. First, they discovered how fusion had made elements heavier than carbon. Then, they detailed eight fusion reactions through which stars convert light elements into heavy ones, to be recycled into space through stellar winds and supernovae. And so, it’s the inside of stars where the alchemist’s dream comes true. Every gram of gold began billions of years ago, forged out of the inside of an exploding star in a supernova. The gold particles lost into space from the explosion mixed with rocks and dust to form part of the early Earth. They’ve been lying in wait ever since.

Most people tend to excuse themselves with the opportunities they have in life, with how many years of school they have, with the people around them. And in doing so, they fail in realizing many other things, such as the fact that not many are lucky enough to give birth to a world bestseller on spirituality, wealth and success in life. Yes, your child may be a little reincarnation of an awesome buddhist monk, of an alchemist or a famous knight templar. Why most people can’t see these things, and keep looking at the past for answers, is something that still puzzles me.