Quotes from Fernando Pessoa

Quando eu abandonar o meu ser como uma cadeira donde me levanto Deixar atrás o mundo como a um quarto donde saio, Abandonar toda esta forma, de sentidos e pensamento, de sentir as coisas, Como uma capa que me prenda, Quando de vez minha alma chegar à superfície da minha pele E dispersar o meu ser pelo universo exterior, Seja com alegria que eu reconheça que a Morte Vem como um sol distante na antemanhã do meu novo ser.

Every effort is a crime, because every gesture is a dead dream.

Que farei eu com esta espada?

If only the day and happiness would never come! If only hopes could at least not suffer the disappointment of coming true!

To conform is to submit and to win is to conform, to be beaten. That is why all victories are essentially vulgar.

We worship perfection, because we cannot have it; and we would loathe it if we did. Perfection is inhuman, because to be human is to be imperfect.

Only slight goals are worth pursuing, because only a slight goal can be entirely fulfilled.

In the viscous air of the abstract street there is only an external thread of feeling, like the slobber of an idiot Destiny, dripping on my soul's consciousness.

We are eternal travelers of ourselves, and the only landscape that exists is what we are. We possess nothing, because we do not even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hands will I reach out to what universe? The universe is not mine: it is me.

I write my literature as I write my ledger entries-carefully and indifferently. Next to the vast starry sky and the enigma of so many souls, the night of the unknown abyss and the chaos of nothing make sense-next to all this, what I write in the ledger and what I write on this paper that tells my soul are equally confined to the Rua dos Douradores, woefully little in the face of the universe's millionaire expanses.

And leaning on the windowsill to enjoy the day, gazing at the variegated mass of the whole city, just one thought fills my soul: that I profoundly wish to die, to cease, to see no more light shining on this city or any city, to think no more, to feel no more, to leave behind the march of time and the sun like a paper wrapper, to remove like a heavy suit – next to the big bed – the involuntary effort of being.

I am the escaped one. My soul seeks me/ through hills and valley/ I hope my soul/ never finds me.

La vida es, en fin, para los indefinidos; sólo pueden convivir quienes nunca se definen, y son nadie los unos para los otros.

To be born free is Man's greatest quality; it is what makes the humble hermit superior to kings, superior even to the gods, who are sufficient unto themselves only by virtue of their power but not by virtue of their disdain for it.

We all live far away and anonymous; disguised, we suffer as unknowns.

El afán por comprender, para tantas almas nobles sustituye al de actuar, pertenece a la esfera de la sensibilidad. Sustituir la energía por la inteligencia, romper el eslabón entre la voluntad y la emoción, despojando de intereses todos los gestos de la vida material, es es lo que, una vez logrado, vale más que la vida, tan difícil de poseer por entero y triste de poseer parcialmente.

Bendita a dor e a pena pelas quais o Mundo se transforma.

I am tired of myself in every way. All things, deep down to the secret of their roots, are stained by the color of my weariness. —Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet . (Penguin Classics, 2002)

For me, possession is an absurd lake — very large, very dark and rather shallow. It only seems deep because it's full of filth and lies.

Özgürlük, yaln?z kalabilmeye denir. Ä°nsanlardan uzaklaÅŸabiliyorsan, onlara hiçbir muhtaçl???n, paraya ihtiyac?n, sürüye uyma içgüdün, aÅŸka, ÅŸana ÅŸöhrete hevesin ya da merak?n yoksa özgürsündür, bunlar?n hepsi sadece yaln?zl?ktan ve sessizlikten beslenir. Yaln?z yaÅŸayam?yorsan, doÄŸuÅŸtan kölesin demektir.

Should I one day take an earthly woman to wife, pray for me the following: that she at any rate be sterile. But also ask, should you pray for me, that I never come to have this hypothetical wife.

M? întind cât sunt eu de lung în iarba p?mântului Åži uit tot ce alÅ£ii m-au înv??at. Înv???tura nu mi-a Å£inut niciodat? nici de cald,nici de frig. Cele despre care mi s-a spus c? exist? nu au modificat vreodat? forma care sunt. Ceea ce am fost înv??at s? v?d nu a atins niciodat? ochii mei.

Que fiz eu da vida? Fiz o que ela fez de mim...

If men knew how to meditate on the mystery of life, if they knew how to feel the thousand complexities which spy on the soul in every single detail of action, they would never act – they wouldn't even live. They would kill themselves from fright, like those who commit suicide to avoid being guillotined the next day.