Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

Todos lo días descubro La espantosa realidad de las cosas: Cada cosa es lo que es. Qué difícil es decir esto y decir Cuánto me alegra y cómo me basta. Para ser completo existir es suficiente.

Seeing and hearing are the only noble things that life contains. The other senses are plebeian and carnal. The only aristocracy lies in not touching. Do not get too close — that is true nobility.

Thinking is still a form of acting. Only in sheer reverie, where nothing active intervenes and even our self-awareness gets stuck in the mud – only there, in this warm and damp state of non-being, can total renunciation of action be achieved. To stop trying to understand, to stop analysing… To see ourselves as we see nature, to view our impressions as we view a field – that is true wisdom.

Acabaram-de de arder, meu amor, na lareira da nossa vida, as achas dos nossos sonhos... Desenganemo-nos da esperança, porque trai, do amor, porque cansa, da vida, porque farta e não sacia, e até da morte, porque traz mais do que se quer e menos do que se espera.

Que importa àquele que já nada importa Que o um perca e outro vença, Se a aurora raia sempre, Se cada ano com a primavera Aparecem as folhas E com o outono cessam?

Every man who deserves to be famous knows it is not worth the trouble.

Art frees us, illusorily, from the squalor of being. While feeling the wrongs and sufferings endured by Hamlet, prince of Denmark, we don't feel our own, which are vile because they're ours and vile because they're vile.

Eu amo tudo o que foi Fernando Pessoa Eu amo tudo o que foi, Tudo o que já não é, A dor que já me não dói, A antiga e errônea fé, O ontem que dor deixou, O que deixou alegria Só porque foi, e voou E hoje é já outro dia.

His voice was dull and tremulous, the voice of one who hopes for nothing, because all hope is vain.

In sexual love we seek our own pleasure via another body. In non-sexual love, we seek our own pleasure via our own idea. The masturbator may be abject, but in point of fact he's the perfect logical expression of the lover. He's the only one who doesn't feign and doesn't fool himself.

And there are many whose dullness and sameness of life is not what they wanted for their life, nor the result of not having wanted any life, but just a dulling of their own self-awareness, a spontaneous irony of the intellect.

Son eras sobre eras, y tiempos tras tiempos, y sólo hay que andar sobre la circunferencia de un círculo que alberga la verdad en el punto del centro.

He was constitutionally condemned to suffer all kinds of anxieties, but fated to abandon them all. I never met a more extraordinary man. He had abdicated everything to which he was by nature destined, but not out of any kind of asceticism. Though naturally ambitious, he savored the pleasure of having no ambitions at all.

I do not even abdicate from the banal gestures of life from which I so wish I could abdicate. Abdication takes effort, and I do not have enough soul to make that effort.

BildiÄŸimiz her ÅŸeyin ucu sahip olduÄŸumuz duygulardan birine, bizi biz yapan ÅŸeyler ise kendi varl???m?za yabanc? bir duyuma ç?kar - buysa, bizim hem oyuncusu, hem etkin izleyicisi, hatta belediye meclisinin özel izniyle tanr?lar? olduÄŸumuz bir melodramd?r.

El principio de la ciencia es saber que ignoramos. El mundo, que es el lugar donde estamos; la carne, que es lo que somos; el Diablo, que es aquello que deseamos: los tres, en un Momento Culminante, mataron al maestro que íbamos a ser. Y aquel secreto que él guardaba, para que nos convirtiéramos en él, ese secreto se perdió.

A ship may seem to be an object whose purpose is to sail, but no, its purpose is to reach a port.

Aquilo que, creio, produz em mim o sentimento profundo, em que vivo, de incongruência com os outros, é que a maioria pensa com a sensibilidade, e eu sinto com o pensamento. Para o homem vulgar, sentir é viver e pensar é saber viver. Para mim, pensar é viver e sentir não é mais que o alimento de pensar.

May our love be a prayer … Anoint me with seeing you, and I will make the moments I dream of you into a rosary, with my tediums for Our Fathers and my anxieties for Hail Marys.

Understanding is what wearies us most of all. To live is to not think.

Cada uno de nosotros somos dos y cuando dos personas se encuentran, se aproximan, se mezclan, es raro que las cuatro puedan estar de acuerdo. El hombre que sueña en cada hombre que actúa, si tantas veces se enfada con el hombre que actúa, ¿cómo no se va a enfadar con el hombre que actúa y el hombre que sueña en el otro?

Ruhum gizli bir orkestra; bilemediÄŸim çalg?lar çal?yor, kemanlar ve arplar, kudümler ve davullar içimde yank?lan?yor. Kendime ancak bir senfoni diyebilirim.

I love you the way I love the sunset or the moonlight: I want the moment to remain, but all I want to possess in it is the sensation of possessing it.

The universe isn't mine: it's me. 139