Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

Signora, tutte le religioni sono vere, per quanto possano sembrare tra di loro opposte. Sono simboli differenti della stessa realtà, sono come la stessa frase detta in varie lingue; tanto che non si intendono gli uni con gli altri anche dicendo la stessa cosa.

I took off the mask and looked in the mirror. I was the same child I was years ago. I hadn't changed at all... That's the advantage of knowing how to remove your mask. You're still the child, The past that lives on, The child. I took off the mask, and I put it back on, It's better this way. This way I'm the mask. And I return to normality as to a streetcar terminus. 11 August 1934

Nuestros padres destruyeron alegremente porque vivían en una época que todavía tenía reflejos de la solidez del pasado. Era aquello mismo que destruían lo que prestaba fuerza a la sociedad para que pudiesen destruir sin sentir agrietarse al edificio. Nosotros heredamos la destrucción y sus resultados.

To give someone good advice is to show a complete lack of respect for that person's God-given ability to make mistakes

Children are particularly literary, for they say what they feel not what someone has taught them to feel.

Yes, tedium is boredom with the world, the malaise of living, the weariness of having lived; in truth, tedium is the feeling in one's flesh of the endless emptiness of things.

Valeu a pena? Tudo vale a pena Se a alma não é pequena.

that most people think with their feelings, whereas I feel with my thoughts.

Io mi siedo sulla soglia e immergo il mio sguardo e il mio udito nei colori e nei suoni del paesaggio e canto piano piano, per me soltanto, dei vaghi canti che compongo nell'attesa.

Ho avuto grandi ambizioni e sogni turgidi - ma i sogni li hanno avuti anche il garzone e la sartina, perché tutti sognano. Quello che distingue le persone le une dalle altre è la forza di farcela, o di lasciare che sia il destino a farla a noi.

La libertad es la posibilidad de aislamiento. Eres libre si puedes alejarte de los hombre, sin que te obligue a buscarlos la necesidad de dinero, o la necesidad gregaria, o el amor, o la gloria, o la curiosidad, que no pueden encontrar alimento en el silencio y la soledad. Si te resulta imposible vivir solo, has nacido esclavo. Puedes tener toda la grandeza de espíritu, toda la grandeza del alma: eres un esclavo noble o un siervo inteligente: no eres libre.

inside the coop where he'll stay until he's killed, the rooster sings anthems to liberty because he was given two roosts.

Literature simulates life. A novel is a history of what never was and a play is a novel without narrative. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings in a language no one uses, since no one speaks in verse.

Before my unfeeling eyes, the repressed bitterness of my whole life peels off the suit of natural joy it wears in the prolonged randomness of every day. I realize that I'm always sad, however happy or content I may often feel. And the part of me that realizes this stands a little behind me...

Afinal, se coisas boas se vão é para que coisas melhores possam vir. Esqueça o passado, desapego é o segredo!

Posso immaginare tutto perché non sono niente. Se fossi qualcosa non potrei immaginare.

All beauty is a dream, even if it exists, For beauty is always more than it is. The beauty I see in you Isn't here, next to me. What I see in you lives where I dream, Far away from here. If you exist, I only know it Because I just dreamed it. — Fernando Pessoa, from "All beauty is a dream, even if it exists," 22 April 1934, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems , ed. & transl. Richard Zenith (Penguin Classics, 2006)

Sou definitivamente contra o definido, porque o definido é o bastante e o bastante não basta.

Entre la vida y yo hay un cristal tenue. Por más claramente que vea y comprenda la vida, no puedo tocarla.

Money can't buy everything, but the personal magnetism that enables a man to make lots of money can, indeed, obtain most things.

Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful – only then do I find myself and feel comforted.

The love of absurdity and paradox is the animal happiness of the sad.

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life

All pleasure is a vice because seeking pleasure is what everyone does in life, and the worst vice of all is to do what everyone else does.