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Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Quotes

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Famous Fernando Pessoa Quotes

“I am the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book. I'm nobody, nobody. I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breath life into me.”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsLongBookCharacterDreamNovelKnow HowAirTownsBreathsNever QuitUndoneUnwrittenHoveringBook Of DisquietPrologue
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming — like worms when a rock is lifted — under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky.”

PeopleKnowsMenLoveMatterAgeVoiceKnow HowWrittenSkyRocksHugeIntellectualMen And WomenBlueVanityAbstractMeaninglessWormsForgetfulnessBlue SkyDigestionBoulders
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“I am the suburb of a non-existent town, the prolix commentary on a book never written. I am nobody, nobody. I am a character in a novel which remains to be written, and I float, aerial, scattered without ever having been, among the dreams of a creature who did not know how to finish me off.”

KnowsBookCharacterDreamNovelKnow HowWrittenCreaturesTownsRemainsFloatsSuburbsCommentary
Book:The book of disquiet: a selection
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“Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingSelfUniverseStandardsIllusionAll ThingsCriticismWeakImportancePhilosopherGreekInterpretationCriticizeStrictNormHallucinationsGreek Philosopher
Book:The Education of the Stoic: The Only Manuscript of the Baron of Teive
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“For a long time now I haven't existed. I'm utterly calm. No one distinguishes me from who I am. I just felt myself breath as if I'd done something new, or done it late. I'm beginning to be conscious of being conscious. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up to myself and resume the course of my existence. I don't know if that will make more happy or less. I don't know anything.”

IfsKnowsLongDoneCoursesFeltExistenceHavensTomorrowLateLong TimeConsciousWake UpBreathsCalmWho I AmSomething NewResumes
Book:The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon
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“We may know that the work we continue to put off doing will be bad. Worse, however, is the work we never do. A work that’s finished is at least finished. It may be poor, but it exists, like the miserable plant in the lone flowerpot of my neighbour who’s crippled. That plant is her happiness, and sometimes it’s even mine. What I write, bad as it is, may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse. That’s enough for me, or it isn’t enough, but it serves some purpose, and so it is with all of life.”

KnowsWritingMaySoulSometimesEnoughMomentsPurposeHurtPoorMinesPlantFinishedMiserableDistractionNeighbourLoneCrippledSad Soul
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“If, on thinking this, I look up to see if reality can quench my thirst, I see inexpressive facades, inexpressive faces, inexpressive gestures. Stones, bodies, ideas - all dead. All movements are one great standstill. Nothing means anything to me, not because it's unfamiliar but because I don't know what it is. The world has slipped away. And in the bottom of my soul - as the only reality of this moment - there's an intense and invisible grief, a sadness like the sound of someone crying in a dark room.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWorldLooksMeanIdeasSoulMomentsBodyRealityFacesSoundDarkRoomsGriefSadnessCryMovementStonesBottomInvisibleIntenseMy SoulLook UpGesturesThirstUnfamiliarFacadeQuenchDark RoomStandstill
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“Silence emerges from the sound of rain and spreads in a crescendo of gray monotony over the narrow street I contemplate. I’m sleeping while awake, standing by the window, leaning against it as against everything. I search in myself for the sensations I feel before these falling threads of darkly luminous water that stand out from the grimy building facades and especially from the open windows. And I don’t know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don’t know what to think or where I am.”

ThinkingKnowsWantFeelsFallSoundWaterSleepSilenceStreetsBuildingRainStandingWindowSpreadAwakeSensationsGrayContemplatingThreadStanding OutLuminousFacadeMonotonyCrescendoNarrow StreetsSound Of Rain
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Every day things happen in the world that cannot be explained by any law of things we know. Every day they're mentioned and forgotten, and the same mystery that brought them takes them away, transforming their secret into oblivion. Such is the law by which things that can't be explained must be forgotten. The visible world goes on as usual in the broad daylight. Otherness watches us from the shadows.”

KnowsWorldHappensLawSecretWatchesMysteryGoes OnShadowForgottenThings HappenVisibleBroadsUsualOblivionTransformingDaylightOtherness
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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