Pessoa Quotes

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

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.

I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.

My soul's the present shadow of a presence gone.

I'm something that I used to be. I'm never where I feel I am, and if I seek myself, I don't know who's seeking me. My boredom with everything has numbed me. I feel banished from my soul.

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

Every spoken word double-crosses us. The written word is the only tolerable form of communication, as it isn't a stone in a bridge between souls but a ray of light between stars.

I search and can't find myself. I belong in chrysanthemum time, sharp in calla lily elongations. God made my soul into an ornamental thing.

I don't believe in the landscape.

Oh salty sea, how much of your salt Is tears from Portugal?

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

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.

Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!

I've never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.

I'm sick of everything, and of the everythingness of everything.

But I am not perfect in my way of putting things Because I lack the divine simplicity Of being only what I appear to be.

...the painful intensity of my sensations, even when they're happy ones; the blissful intensity of my sensations, even when they're sad.

Literature exists because the world isn't enough.

I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.

The human soul is an abyss

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.

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

Between me and life is a faint glass. No matter how sharply I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.

What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?

Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.

To think is to destroy. The very process of thought indicates it for the same thought, as thinking is decomposing.

There's no regret more painful than the regret of things that never were.

I realize that, while often happy and often cheerful, I am always sad.

I look at myself but I'm missing. I know myself: it’s not me.

I know not what tomorrow will bring.

Who am I to myself? Just a feeling of mine.

Whether or not they exist we are slaves to our gods.

Ah, what a morning this is, awakening me to life's stupidity. [98 - Zenith trans.]

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

The unnatural and the strange have a perfume of their own

It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living.

Every man who deserves to be famous knows it is not worth the trouble.

Ah, who will save me from existing? It's neither death nor life that I want.

Better to dream than to be.

Art consists in making others feel what we feel.

My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.

Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.

Smell is a strange sight. It evokes sentimental landscapes through a sudden sketching of the subconscious.

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

But my sadness is comforting Because it’s right and natural And because it’s what the soul should feel When it already thinks it exists And the hand pick flowers And the soul takes no notice.

Having touched Christ's feet is not an excuse for punctuation mistakes.

There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street.

What is art but the denial of life?

Fraternity has subtleties.

Art gives us the illusion of liberation from the sordid business of being.