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Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Quotes

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Famous Fernando Pessoa Quotes

“Life is an experimental journey that we make involuntarily. It is a journey of the mind through matter, and since it is the mind that journeys, that is where we live. And so there are contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely and more turbulently than those who live externally. The end result is what counts. What was felt is what was lived. A dream can tire us out as much as physical labour. We never live as hard as when we've thought a great deal.”

ThinkingLifeLivingExperienceThoughtContemplationIntroversionExtroversionInternal LifeExternal Life
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“The twilights of ancient cities, with lost traditions inscribed in the black stones of their massive buildings; tremulous dawns over inundated fields, swampy and damp like the air before the sun comes out; the narrow lanes where anything could happen; the heavy chests in age-old sitting rooms; the well behind the farmhouse on a moonlit night; the letter dating from when our grandmother whom we never met was first in love; the mildew in the rooms where the past is stored; the rifle no one knows how to use any more; the fever of hot afternoons next to the window; not a soul on the road; fitful slumber; the blight in the vineyards; church bells; the cloistral grief of living…”

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Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“To think of our greatest anxiety as an insignificant event, not only in the life of the universe but also in the life of our own soul, is the beginning of wisdom. To think this way right in the midst of our anxiety is the height of wisdom. While we're actually suffering, our human pain seems infinite. But human pain isn't infinite, because nothing human is infinite, and our pain has no value beyond its being a pain we feel.”

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Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Is it that my habit of placing myself in the souls of other people makes me see myself as others see or would see me if they noticed my presence there? It is. And once I've perceived what they would feel about me if they knew me, it is as if they were feeling and expressing it at that very moment. It is a torture to me to live with other people. Then there are those who live inside me. Even when removed from life, I'm forced to live with them. Alone, I am hemmed in by multitudes. I have nowhere to flee to, unless I were to flee myself.”

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Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Yes it’s me, I myself, what I turned out to be, (…) I’m the one here in myself, it’s me. (…) Whatever I was, whatever I wasn’t—it’s all in what I am. Whatever I wanted, whatever I didn’t want—all of this has shaped me. Whatever I loved, or stopped loving—in me it’s the same nostalgia (Álvaro de Campos)”

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Book:A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems
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“Everything is as utterly vain as stirring up cold ashes, as insubstantial as the moment just before dawn. And the light shines serenely and perfectly forth from things, gilds them with a smiling, sad reality. The whole mystery of the world appears before my eyes sculpted from this banality, this street. Ah, how mysteriously the everyday things of life brush by us! On the surface, touched by light, of this complex human life, Time, a hesitant smile, blooms on the lips of the Mystery! How modern all this sounds, yet deep down it is so ancient, so hidden, so different from the meaning that shines out from all of this.”

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Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Government of the world begins in us. It's not the sincere who govern the world, but neither is it the insincere; it's those who create in themselves a real sincerity by artificial and automatic means. This sincerity is what makes them strong, and it outshines the less false sincerity of others. To be adept at deluding oneself is the first prerequisite for a statesman. Only poets and philosophers see the world as it really is, for only to them is it given to live without illusions. To see clearly is to not act.”

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Book:The Book of Disquiet
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