Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

O que é certo é que entre um homem vulgar e um macaco há menos diferença que entre um homem vulgar e um homem realmente culto.

Let me return to childhood and stay there forever, caring nothing for the values that grown men give to things or for the relationships that grown men establish between them.

Antinoj je mrtav - mrtav doveka, umro je i za njim sve ljubavi tuže. Venera, što ljubljaše Adonisa, ?oveka, u njem' ro?enje i smrt dragog pozna te se njen jad i bol Hadrijanov združe kao tuga grozna.

Death is what we are and what we live. We are born dead, we deadly exist, and we are already dead when we enter Death. Whatever lives, lives because it changes; it changes because it passes; and, because it passes, it dies. Whatever lives is constantly transforming into something else – it continually denies itself, it perpetually evades life. Life is thus an interval, a link, a relation, but a relation between what has passed and what will pass, a dead interval between Death and Death.

Seeing the immanent futility of all forms of action was, from childhood on, one of my favorite means of detaching myself even from myself.

Nunca chegar implica não chegar nunca

Have you ever thought, O Other, how invisible we are to each other? Have you already pondered how little we know each other? We see each other and do not see each other. We hear each other, and we each hear only a voice inside us. The words of others are errors in our hearing, shipwrecks in our understanding. How confidently we believe in our interpretation of other people's words.

Todo es absurdo. Éste empeña su vida en ganar un dinero que guarda, y no tiene hijos a quien dejárselo ni esperanza de que el cielo le reserve alguna transcendencia por ese dinero. Aquél empeña su esfuerzo en adquirir una fama para después de muerto, y no cree en la supervivencia que le permita conocer su fama.

O que eu quero deveras, com toda a intimidade da minha alma, é que cessem as nuvens átonas que ensaboam cinzentamente o céu; o que eu quero é ver o azul começar a surgir de entre elas, verdade certa e clara porque nada é nem quer.

To go from the phantoms of faith to the ghosts of reason is merely to change cells.

Só com um jeito do corpo Feito sem dares por isso Fazes mais mal que o demônio Em dias de grande enguiço.

Carta para no enviar La dispenso de comparecer en mi idea de usted. Su vida [...] Eso no es mi amor, sino su vida.   La amo como amo el crepúsculo o el reflejo de la luna, con el deseo de que el momento quede, pero sin que sea mío salvo en la sensación de haberlo vivido.

Men and objects share a common abstract destiny: to be of equally insignificant value in the algebra of life's mystery.

Tudo se me tornou insuportável, exceto a vida

Sunt în dezacord cu mine,dar m? iert Fiindc? nici nu m? accept cu toat? seriozitatea.

Tenho a náusea física da humanidade vulgar, que é, aliás, a única que há. E capricho, ás vezes, em aprofundar essa náusea, como se pode provocar um vomito para aliviar a vontade de vomitar.

Toen ik mij wilde ontmaskeren Zat het masker vast aan mijn gezicht.

We are living an entr'acte with orchestral accompaniment.

Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways. (Text 396)

Whatever is real in our sensations is precisely what they have that isn't ours. The sensations common to us all are what constitute reality. Our sensations' individuality, therefore, lies in whatever they have that's erroneous. What joy it would give me to see a scarlet-coloured sun! How totally and exclusively mine it would be!

Beautiful was my love, yet melancholy.

I know of no pleasure like that of books, yet I read very little. Books are the entryway to dreams, but people at ease in life don't need such introductions to enter into conversation with dreams. I could never read a book and give myself over to it; always, with each step, the commentary of my intellect or my imagination interrupts the narrative sequence. After some minutes I am the one who writes and the writing is nowhere to be seen.

Those who have Gods don't have tedium. Tedium is the lack of a mythology.

O moinho que mói trigo Mexe-o o vento ou a água, Mas o que tenho comigo Mexe-o apenas a mágoa.