Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

The vegetal academy of silences

We never love anyone. We love only our idea of what someone is like. We love an idea of our own; in short, it is ourselves that we love.

É tão magno o tédio, tão soberano o horror de estar vivo, que não concebo que coisa haja que pudesse servir de lenitivo, de antídoto, de bálsamo ou esquecimento para ele. Dormir horroriza-me como tudo. Morrer horroriza-me como tudo. Ir e parar são a mesma coisa impossível. Esperar e descrer equivalem-se em frio e cinza. Sou uma prateleira de frascos vazios.

Your profile relies on you not being anything and the shape of your unreal body unstrings and scatters the pearls of the very idea that you even have a shape. You have already passed, you have already been, I have already loved you — that is how I feel your presence.

Exist? destul? metafizic? în a nu te gândi la nimic.

Besides, what can I expect from myself? My sensations in all their horrible acuity, and a profound awareness of feeling … A sharp mind that only destroys me, and a ferocious capacity for dreaming to keep me entertained … A dead will and a reflection that cradles it

Nascer liberto é a maior grandeza do homem

Creeds, ideals, a woman, a profession – all are prisons and shackles.

Quien no ve bien una palabra , no puede ver bien un alma.

Should you ask me if I'm happy, I shall answer that I'm not.

Cum eu mi-am luat visurile drept realitate ÅŸi mi-am tr?it cât se poate mai intens propriile-mi visuri,acestea au f?cut s?-i creasc? un spin trandafirului fictiv al vieÅ£ii mele visate.Asrfel încât pân? ÅŸi visurile mele îmi displac,c?ci le g?sesc tot felul de defecte.

Love is a mysticism that wants to be materialized, an impossibility that our dreams always insist must be possible.

I was not meant for reality, it was life that sought me out.

I like to think, because I know it won't be long before I stop thinking.

Em todos os manicómios há doidos malucos com tantas certezas! Eu, que não tenho nenhuma certeza, sou mais certo ou menos certo?

Passa tudo isso, e nada de tudo isso me diz nada, tudo é alheio ao meu destino, alheio, até, ao destino próprio — inconsciência, carambas ao despropósito quando o acaso deita pedras, ecos de vozes incógnitas — salada coletiva da vida.

To belong is synonymous with banality.

Vi-te a dizer um adeus A alguém que se despedia, E quase implorei dos céus Que eu partisse qualquer dia.

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

And all religions put together teach no more than the candy shop.

Antinous is dead, is dead for ever, Is dead for ever and all loves lament Venus herself, that was Adonis lover, Seeing him, that newly lived, now dead again, Lends her old grief's renewal to be blent With Hadrian's pain.

los pobres diablos sin más literatura que su propia alma, sin más libros que los de otros, que mueren asfixiados por el hecho de existir sin haber hecho aquel desconocido examen trascendente que los habilitara para vivir.

But if the Dream Kings were mine, what would I have to dream about? If I possessed the impossible landscapes, what would remain of the impossible?

I feel a kind of horror at the superior tyranny that obliges us to keep walking even though we have no idea what it is that our uncertainty is going to meet.