Art consists in making others feel what we feel. Fernando Pessoa More Quotes by Fernando Pessoa More Quotes From Fernando Pessoa Nostalgia! I feel it even for someone who meant nothing to me, out of anxiety for the flight of time and a sickness bred of the mystery of life. If one of the faces I pass daily on the streets disappears, I feel sad; yet they meant nothing to me, other than being a symbol of all life. Fernando Pessoa sadness time life In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it was I. I experienced them, but it was in another life, from which I just woke up, as if from someone else's dream. Fernando Pessoa dream writing years Never read a book to the end, nor even in sequence and without skipping. Fernando Pessoa ends advice book Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets? Fernando Pessoa beast madness men 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. Fernando Pessoa numbness boredom soul When one of my Japanese teacups is broken, I imagine that the real cause was not the careless hand of a maid but the anxieties of the figures inhabiting the curves of that porcelain. Their grim decision to commit suicide doesn't shock me: they used the maid as one of us might use a gun. Fernando Pessoa gun real suicide 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 demand rays mean 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. Fernando Pessoa chrysanthemums lilies soul 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. Fernando Pessoa simplicity perfect way I don't know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don't know what to think or what I am. Fernando Pessoa want feels thinking Between me and life is a faint glass. No matter how sharply I see and understand life, I cannot touch it. Fernando Pessoa glasses matter life-is And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living. Fernando Pessoa soul feels thinking It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living. Fernando Pessoa know-how noble shy Literature exists because the world isn't enough. Fernando Pessoa literature enough world Whether or not they exist we are slaves to our gods. Fernando Pessoa slave Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen. Fernando Pessoa self giving thinking 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. Fernando Pessoa rainy-day funeral sorry 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. Fernando Pessoa sadness flower thinking To think is to destroy. The very process of thought indicates it for the same thought, as thinking is decomposing. Fernando Pessoa process thinking Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking. Fernando Pessoa hopeless silence dream
