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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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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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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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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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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Everyone has his vanity, and each one's vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.

Fernando Pessoa

Vanity, Soul, Forget

"The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 88, 2006.

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Contradiction is the essence of the universe.

Fernando Pessoa

Essence, Contradiction, Universe

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All I’ve ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching. I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.

Fernando Pessoa

Dream, Grief, Self

Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.194, Profile Books

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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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I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.

Fernando Pessoa

Battle, Bears, Book Of Disquiet

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Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.

Fernando Pessoa

Soul, Worthwhile, Ifs

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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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In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

Fernando Pessoa

Order, Self Destruction, Destruction

"A Factless Autobiography". Book by Fernando Pessoa (p. 73), 2006.

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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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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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For who expects nothing, all that comes is grateful

Fernando Pessoa

Grateful, Expect Nothing

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

Fernando Pessoa

Whole

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Solitude desolates me; company oppresses me.

Fernando Pessoa

Solitude, Company

"The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 73, 2006.

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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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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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Everything interests me, but nothing holds me.

Fernando Pessoa

Hold Me, Interest, Book Of Disquiet

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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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