Beautiful excerpt from Paolo Coelho’s “Manuscript Found In Acrra.“
“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 the 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 the 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 only has 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.”
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