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Quote by Fernando Pessoa

Work

Livro do Desassossego

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Author

Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa

Portuguese poet known for his unique narrative style and rich inner world. Fernando Pessoa is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, and his works are still widely studied and discussed today. more

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“But then again, he would think, what about his life- and about Jude's life, too- wasn't it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up - where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn't. Wasn't it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could life a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn't it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn't it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable?Wasn't friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn't this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle?”

“The most common human affliction is that we create our own jail cells and then forget where we put the key. We become like robots, unyielding in our thinking and settled within the confines of our learned belief system. We become not the free spirit of the universe with endless possibilities that we are, but the followers of man, led like sheep to believe and see only what man wants us to see and believe. We can live like this, or we can open our eyes, remember who we are, and unlock our cells.”