Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

Nunca duvidei que todos me traíssem; e pasmei sempre quando me traíram.

Considerar nuestra angustia más profunda como un incidente sin importancia, no sólo en la vida del universo, sino en la de nuestra propia alma, es el principio de la sabiduría.

El propio vivir es morir, porque no tenemos un día más en nuestra vida en que no tengamos, por ello, un día menos.

To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves. (It's exceedingly important that we not love).

In order to write this, I plucked the souls from all the flowers, and out of the ephemeral moments of all the songs of all the birds I wove eternity and stagnation.

porque nunca há piedade para os aleijados do espírito

Men of action are the unwitting slaves of men of the intellect. Things only acquire value once they are interpreted. Some men, then, create things in order that others, by giving them meaning, make them live.

Everything I sought in life I abandoned for the sake of the search.

I suddenly felt something like tenderness for that man. I felt the tenderness one feels for common human banality, for the daily routine of the family breadwinner going to work, for his humble and happy home, for the happy and sad pleasures that necessarily make up his life, for the innocence of living without analysing, for the animal naturalness of that coat-covered back.

To organise our life in such a way that it becomes a mystery to others, that those who are closest to us will only be closer to not knowing us. That is how I've shaped my life, almost without thinking about it, but I did it with so much instinctive art that even to myself I've become a not entirely clear and definite individual.

I limited and focused my desires to hone and refine them. To reach the infinite – and I believe it can be reached – we need to have a sure port, just one, from which to set out for the Indefinite. Today I'm an ascetic in my religion of myself. A cup of coffee, a cigarette and my dreams can substitute quite well for the universe and its stars, for work, love, and even beauty and glory. I need virtually no stimulants. I have opium enough in my soul.

a mild indifference should protect our soul from the dull blows inflicted by our unavoidable coexistence with other people.

Hep savunma hatt?nday?m. Hayat?n ve baÅŸkalar?n?n ac?s?n? çektiriyorum kendime. Gerçeklikle yüzleÅŸebilmekten âcizim. GüneÅŸ bile, salt varl???yla eziyor, hüzne boÄŸuyor beni. Sadece gece vakti –geceleyin, kendimle baÅŸ baÅŸayken–, her ÅŸeyden uzak, her ÅŸeyi unutan, ne gerçeklikle ne de bir ÅŸeylerin yarar?yla ilgisi olmayan, yitik gecede kendime kavuÅŸuyor, biraz teselli buluyorum.

Yet my sadness is a comfort For it is natural and right And is what should fill the soul Whenever it thinks it exists

What we see isn't what we see but what we are.

Over the diversely high rooftops the light lets its hands slip away until, in the unity of those same rooftops, the inner shadow of everything emerges.

Let's not forget to hate those who enjoy, just because they enjoy, and to despise those who are happy, because we didn't know how to be happy like them.

Only one thing surprises me more than the stupidity with which most men live their lives and that is the intellegence inherent in that stupidity. [...] The wise man makes his life monotonous, for then even the tiniest accident becomes imbued with great significance.

El tedio no es la enfermedad del aburrimiento por no tener nada que hacer, sino la enfermedad más grave de sentir que no vale la pena hacer nada.

I'm like a being from another existence who passes, with a certain amount of interest, through this one. I'm alien to it in every way. There's a kind of glass sheet between me and it. I want the glass to be perfectly clear, so that it will in no way hinder my examination of what's behind it, but I always want the glass.

O que há em mim é sobretudo cansaço —Não disto nem daquilo. Nem sequer de tudo ou de nada. Cansaço assim mesmo, ele mesmo. Cansaço.

Todo cuanto hacemos, en el arte o en la vida, es la copia imperfecta de lo que hemos pensado hacer.

Night will fall on all of us and the carriage will arrive. I enjoy the breeze given to me and the soul given to me to enjoy it and I ask no more questions, look no further.

We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept – our own selves – that we love. This is true in the whole gamut of love. 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.