Fernando Pessoa Quotes

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The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!

Fernando Pessoa

Unique, People, Lasts

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Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.

Fernando Pessoa

Life Is, Traveler, Book Of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa (2007). “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”, p.348, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Stones in the road? I save every single one, and one day I'll build a castle.

Fernando Pessoa

One Day, Castles, Stones

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The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.

Fernando Pessoa

Hope, Hurt, Regret

Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

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There is a time when it is necessary to abandon the used clothes, which already have the shape of our body and to forget our paths, which takes us always to the same places. This is the time to cross the river: and if we don't dare to do it, we will have stayed, forever beneath ourselves

Fernando Pessoa

Time, Rivers, Clothes

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I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.

Fernando Pessoa

Reality, Found, Book Of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa (2002). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.276, Penguin UK

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I am nothing. I'll never be anything. I couldn't want to be something. Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world.

Fernando Pessoa

Dream, World, Want

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If you cannot live alone, you were born a slave.

Fernando Pessoa

Solitude, Slave, Born

Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

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I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.

Fernando Pessoa

Battle, Bears, Book Of Disquiet

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There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.

Fernando Pessoa

People, Norm, Exception

Fernando Pessoa (2007). “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”, p.282, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.

Fernando Pessoa

Soul, Worthwhile, Ifs

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For who expects nothing, all that comes is grateful

Fernando Pessoa

Grateful, Expect Nothing

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I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist. I’m the space between what I’d like to be and what others made of me. Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.

Fernando Pessoa

Space, Ease, Rooms

Fernando Pessoa, Edwin Honig, Susan M. Brown (1986). “The Poems of Fernando Pessoa”, New York : Ecco Press

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We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.

Fernando Pessoa

Love Is, Self, Ideas

Fernando Pessoa (2007). “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”, p.251, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.

Fernando Pessoa

Symphony, Soul, Sound

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To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing. Be whole in everything.

Fernando Pessoa

Whole

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My happiest hours are those in which I think nothing, want nothing, when I do not even dream, but lose myself in some spurious vegetable torpor, moss growing on the surface of life. Without a trace of bitterness I savour my absurd awareness of being nothing, a mere foretaste of death and extinction.

Fernando Pessoa

Dream, Thinking, Vegetables

Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.50, Profile Books

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Art consists in making others feel what we feel.

Fernando Pessoa

Art, Feels, Book Of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa (2017). “The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition”, p.357, New Directions Publishing

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Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions.

Fernando Pessoa

Beautiful, Art, Purpose

Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

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I always live in the present. The future I can't know. The past I no longer have.

Fernando Pessoa

Past, Live In The Present, Knows

"The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 118, 1982.

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I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.

Fernando Pessoa

Up Early, Long, Ready

Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

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It's been a long time since I've been me.

Fernando Pessoa

Time, Long, Long Time

Fernando Pessoa (2009). “The Collected Poems of Álvaro de Campos: 1928-1935”

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Have you ever considered, beloved other, how invisible we are to each other? We look at each other without seeing. We listen to each other and hear only a voice inside out self. The words of others are mistakes of our hearing, shipwrecks of our understanding. How confidently we believe OUR meanings of other people's words.

Fernando Pessoa

Mistake, Believe, Self

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There's a non-existent peace in the uncertain quietness

Fernando Pessoa

Peace, Uncertain, Quietness

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No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it.

Fernando Pessoa

Stupid, Acceptance, Intelligent

"The Book of Disquietude" by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, (text 104), 1982.

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Fernando Pessoa

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Born: June 13, 1888
Died: November 30, 1935
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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