Fernando Pessoa Quotes - Page 5

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• I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything from me - this was denied me, like the spare change we might deny a beggar not because we're mean-hearted but because we don't feel like unbuttoning our coat.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Mean, Rays, Demand

  Fernando Pessoa (2007). “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”, p.321, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• God gave the sea the danger and the abyss, but it was in it that He mirrored the sky.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Mirrors, Sea, Sky

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• I want to be a work of art, at least in my soul, since I can’t be one in my body.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Art, Soul, Body

  Fernando Pessoa (1996). “The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon”

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• That is my morality or my metaphysics or me myself: a passer-by in everything, even my own soul. I belong to nothing, I desire nothing, I am nothing except an abstract centre of impersonal sensations, a sentient mirror fallen from the wall but still turned to reflect the diversity of the world.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Wall, Mirrors, Diversity

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• The perfect man of pagans was the perfection of the man there is; the perfect man of christians, the perfection of the man there isn't; the buddhists' perfect man, the perfection of not existing a man.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Christian, Buddhist, Men

  "The Book of Disquiet". The Book of Disquiet, 1982.

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• Success consists in being successful, not in having potential for success. Any wide piece of ground is the potential site of a palace, but there's no palace till it's built.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Successful, Reality, Pieces

  Fernando Pessoa (2002). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.116, Penguin UK

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• To feel today what one felt yesterday isn't to feel - it's to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today's living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Yesterday, Today, Remember

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• The beauty of a naked body is felt only by the dressed races.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Race, Naked, Body

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p.75, 1982.

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• The superiority of the dreamer is that dreaming is much more practical than living, and that the dreamer extracts from life a much vaster and varied pleasure than the action man. In better and more direct words, the dreamer is the real action man.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Dream, Real, Men

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p.110, 1982.

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• And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Soul, Feels

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• I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Victory, Defeat, Awareness

  Fernando Pessoa (2002). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.74, Penguin UK

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• There's a tiredness of abstract inteligence, and it's the most horrible of tirednesses. It doesn't weight on you like the tiredness of the body, nor does it worry you like the tiredness of knowledge and emotion. It's a weightiness of the conscience of the world, an inability of the soul to breathe.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Worry, Soul, Inability

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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.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Who I Am, Long, Wake Up

  Fernando Pessoa (1996). “The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon”

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• A great emotion is too selfish ; it takes into itself all the blood of the spirit, and the congestion leaves the hands too cold to write. Three sorts of emotion produce great poetry - strong but quick emotions, seized upon for art as soon as they have passed, but not before they have passed ; strong and deep emotions in their remembrance along time after ; and false emotions, that is to say, emotions felt in the intellect. Not insincerity, but a translated sincerity, is the basis of all art.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Strong, Art, Selfish

  Fernando Pessoa (1988). “Always Astonished: Selected Prose”, p.53, City Lights Books

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• But do we really live? To live without knowing what life is - is that living?

  Fernando Pessoa

  Knowing, Life Is, Book Of Disquiet

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

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• I know nothing and my heart aches

  Fernando Pessoa

  Heart, Ache, Knows

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.114, Profile Books

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• Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets?

  Fernando Pessoa

  Men, Madness, Beast

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• We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Desire, Acting, Genius

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• I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  "The Book of Disquiet".

  47 Copy quote

• To have opinions is to sell out to youself. To have no opinions is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Opinion, Poet, Book Of Disquiet

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• Give to each emotion a personality, to each state of mind a soul.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Giving, Personality, Soul

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.9, Profile Books

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• For I am the size of what I see / not my height's size.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Height, Size

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• Changing from the ghosts of faith to the spectres of reason is just changing cells.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Change, Cells, Ghost

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 62, 2006.

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• I sometimes think that I enjoy suffering. But the truth is I would prefer something else.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Suffering, Sometimes

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.190, Profile Books

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• The sea with an end can be Greek or Roman: the endless sea is Portuguese.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Sea, Greek, Portuguese

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