Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

A glória de um poente belo, com a sua beleza entristece-me . Ante ele eu digo sempre: como quem é feliz se deve sentir contente ao ver isto!

Nasci num tempo em que a maioria dos jovens tinham perdido a crença em Deus, pela mesma razão que os seus maiores a tinham tido — sem saber porquê.

Ah! the anguish, the vile rage, the despair Of not being able to express With a shout, an extreme and bitter shout, The bleeding of my heart!

Lacking the ability to love, we grow weary, even before they are spoken, of the words we would have to say in order to be loved.

J'éprouve un dégoût physique pour l'humanité ordinaire ; c'est d'ailleurs la seule qui existe. Et la fantaisie me prend parfois d'approfondir ce dégoût, de même qu'on peut provoquer un vomissement pour soulager son envie de vomir.

Vivere è non pensare.

Dormir (...) Una nada con respiración por fuera, una muerte leve de la que se despierta con nostalgia y frescor, un ceder los tejidos del alma al masaje del olvido.

Wanting to go and die in Peking and not being able to is something that weighs on me like the idea of some imminent cataclysm.

The scholiast who annotated Virgil was wrong. Understanding is what wearies us most of all. To live is to not think.

BaÅŸkalar?n?n kiÅŸiliÄŸimizi istila etmelerinin de özellikle önüne geçmeliyiz. Ä°nsanlar?n bizimle herhangi bir ÅŸekilde ilgilenmesinde, eÅŸi görülmemiÅŸ bir hoyratl?k vard?r. Åžu s?radan 'Nas?ls?n?z?' laf?n? affedilmez bir kabal?k olmaktan ç?karan ÅŸey varsa, o da genellikle zaten içinin boÅŸ, samimiyetsiz olmas?d?r.

Through rational thought I can recognize that a man is a living being just like me, but for my true, involuntary self he has always had less importance than a tree, if the tree is more beautiful.

Let us flee, my love, from being ourselves… Let us never remove from our finger the magic ring that summons, when turned, the fairies of silence and the elves of darkness and the gnomes of oblivion…

Blessed are those who entrust their lives to no one

Morrer é só não ser visto.

Those who truly suffer don't form a group or go around as a mob. Those who suffer, suffer alone.

I have enough money to buy food and drink, I have somewhere to live and enough free time in which to dream, write - and sleep - what more can I ask of the gods or hope for from fate? I had great ambitions and extravagant dreams, but so did the errand boy and the seamstress, for everyone has dreams; the only difference is the whether or not we have the strength to fulfil them or a destiny that will fulfil them through us.

I know nothing greater, nor more worthy of the truly great man, than the patient and expressive analysis of the ways in which we don't know ourselves, the conscious recording of the unconsciousness of our conscious states, the metaphysics of autonomous shadows, the poetry of the twilight

Todo arte es una forma de literatura, porque consiste en expresar algo. Hay dos formas de expresarlo: hablar y callarse. Las artes que no pertenecen a la literatura son la proyección de un silencio expresivo.

El arte todo, toda la libertad, consiste en someter el espíritu lo menos posible, dejando al cuerpo que se someta a la voluntad.

I am a man for whom the external world is an internal reality.

Every pleasure is a vice, because to seek pleasure is what everyone does in life, and the only black vice is to do what everyone else does.

irony. I know nothing greater, nor more worthy of the truly great man, than the patient and expressive analysis of the ways in which we don't know ourselves, the conscious recording of the unconsciousness of our conscious states, the metaphysics of autonomous shadows, the poetry of the twilight of disillusion.

Alguien conoce las fronteras de su alma, para poder decir, yo soy yo?

Amar es la eterna inocencia. Y la única inocencia es no pensar.