Fernando Pessoa Quotes - Page 4

Writing is like paying myself a formal visit.

And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion - a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other.

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

I am the escaped one, After I was born They locked me up inside me But I left. My soul seeks me, Through hills and valley, I hope my soul Never finds me.

I am the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book. I'm nobody, nobody. I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breath life into me.

I'm upset by the happiness of all these men who don't know they're unhappy. Because of that, though, I love them all. Dear vegetables!

Yes, talking to people makes me sleepy.

To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves. (It is exceedingly important that we not love.)

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

The essence of what I desire is simply this: to sleep away life.

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

I crave time in all its duration, and I want to be myself unconditionally.

Everything is theater.

Life is whatever we conceive it to be.

The end of lower art is to please, the end of average art is to raise the top, the end of superior art is to free.

Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.

I am tired of myself in every way. All things, deep down to the secret of their roots, are stained by the color of my weariness.

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

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

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.

To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you. Be whole in everything. Put all you are Into the smallest thing you do. So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor Because it blooms up above.

If we knew the truth, we'd see it; all else is system and outskirts.

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

This world is for those who are born to conquer it, Not for those who dream that are able to conquer it, even if they're right.

Direct experience is the evasion, or hiding place of those devoid of imagination.