Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

You've never heard the wind blow. The wind only speaks of the wind. What you heard was a lie, And the lie is in you.

Life would be intolerable if we were conscious of it. Happily, we are not. We live with the same unconsciousness as animals, in the same futile vain way, and if we think in advance about death (which they, in all probability, without being dogmatic do not do), we think about it through the veils of so many oblivions, so many distractions and meanderings, that it can hardly be said we think about it at all.

Pobres semidioses novatos que conquistan imperios con la palabra y con la intención noble, pero necesitan dinero para pagar el cuarto y la comida!

A swinging pendulum, back and forth, forever moving to arrive nowhere, eternally captive to the twin fatality of a centre and a useless motion.

Sleep is fusion with God, Nirvana, however it be called.

Literature, which is art married to thought and the immaculate realization of reality, seems to me the goal towards which all human effort should be directed, as long as that effort is truly human and not just a vestige of the animal in us.

In the plausible intimacy of approaching evening, as I stand waiting for the stars to begin at the window of this fourth floor room that looks out on the infinite, my dreams move to the rhythm required by long journeys to countries as yet unknown, or to countries that are simply hypothetical or impossible.

Ever since I was a child, the intrinsic futility of all forms of action has been a cherished touchstone for my detachment from everything, including me.

To be published = the socialization of the self. What a base necessity!

To move is to live, to express oneself is to endure.

Note that the art of dreaming is not the art of directing our dreams. To direct is to act. The true dreamer surrenders to himself, is possessed by himself.

I'm two people who mutually keep their distance — Siamese twins living separate lives.

It's better to write than dare to live, even if living is nothing more than buying bananas...

Bendito sea el elemento irónico de los destinos que concede a los pobres de vida el sueño como pensamiento, así como concedo a los pobres de sueño la vida como pensamiento o el pensamiento como vida.

Each of us is two, and when two people meet, come into contact or join together, it's rare that the four of them can agree. If the man who dreams in the man who acts is so frequently at odds with him, how can he help but be at odds with the man who acts and the man who dreams in the Other?

I painted myself in false colors and ended up with an attic room for an empire.

Fictions of the interlude, covering with color the apathy and idleness of our own disbelief.

A metà strada tra la fede e la critica c'è sempre l'ostello della ragione. La ragione è la fede in ciò che si può comprendere senza fede; ma è anche essa stessa una fede, perchè comprendere implica presupporre che esista qualcosa di comprensibile.

Homo homini lupus é uma das tristes certezas da vida. A tese, com efeito, pode ser alargada, e aplicada não só ao egoísmo nacional como também ao egoísmo dos indivíduos. (...)Só a paz é infecunda, só a concórdia é improfícua, só o humanitarismo é anti-humanitário. E assim morre, ante a análise sociológica, o último dos falsos princípios da Democracia moderna.

Ä°stemeden var?m ve istemeden öleceÄŸim. OlduÄŸum ÅŸeyle olmad???m ÅŸey aras?nda, hayal ettiÄŸim ÅŸeyle hayat?n beni yapt??? ÅŸey aras?nda bir boÅŸluÄŸum.

Ai que prazer Nao cumprir um dever, Ter um livro para ler E não o fazer!

No other writer ever achieved such a direct transference of self to paper. The Book of Disquiet is the world's strangest photograph, made out of words, the only material capable of capturing the recesses of the soul it exposes. Richard Zenith, 2001 NOTES

O que devera humilhar-me é a minha bandeira, que desfraldo; e o riso com que deveria rir de mim, é um clarim com que saúdo e gero uma alvorada em que me faço.

Pensar como espiritualistas, agir como materialistas. Não é absurda a doutrina: é, afinal, a doutrina espontânea da humanidade inteira.