Art gives us the illusion of liberation from the sordid business of being. Fernando Pessoa More Quotes by Fernando Pessoa More Quotes From Fernando Pessoa 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 wake-up who-i-am long If, on thinking this, I look up to see if reality can quench my thirst, I see inexpressive facades, inexpressive faces, inexpressive gestures. Stones, bodies, ideas - all dead. All movements are one great standstill. Nothing means anything to me, not because it's unfamiliar but because I don't know what it is. The world has slipped away. And in the bottom of my soul - as the only reality of this moment - there's an intense and invisible grief, a sadness like the sound of someone crying in a dark room. Fernando Pessoa sadness grief mean I never had anyone I could call “Master”. No Christ died for me. No Buddha showed me the right path. In the depths of my dreams no Apollo or Athena appeared to me to enlighten my soul Fernando Pessoa depth soul dream Everything is theater. Fernando Pessoa theater All that I've lived I've forgotten, as if I'd vaguely heard it. All that I'll be reminds me of nothing, as if I'd lived and forgotten it. Fernando Pessoa ifs heard forgotten pg 9, "The consciousness of life's unconsciousness is the oldest tax levied on the intelligence. Fernando Pessoa unconsciousness taxes consciousness To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction. Fernando Pessoa metaphysical matter mistake I’m losing my taste for everything, including even my taste for finding everything tasteless. Fernando Pessoa findings taste losing Walking on these streets, until the night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have. By day they’re full of meaningless activity; by night, they’re full of meaningless lack of it. By day I am nothing, and by night I am I. There is no difference between me and these streets, save they being streets and I a soul, which perhaps is irrelevant when we consider the essence of things Fernando Pessoa essence night fall Let's buy books so as not to read them; let's go to concerts without caring to hear the music or see who's there; let's take long walks because we're sick of walking; and let's spend whole days in the country, just because it bores us. Fernando Pessoa caring country book Everything stated or expressed by man is a note in the margin of a completely erased text. From what's in the note we can extract the gist of what must have been in the text, but there's always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many. Fernando Pessoa gist doubt men I am the suburb of a non-existent town, the prolix commentary on a book never written. I am nobody, nobody. I am a character in a novel which remains to be written, and I float, aerial, scattered without ever having been, among the dreams of a creature who did not know how to finish me off. Fernando Pessoa dream character book When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial. Fernando Pessoa clever dream witty To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming — like worms when a rock is lifted — under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky. Fernando Pessoa vanity love men 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 genius acting desire The essence of what I desire is simply this: to sleep away life. Fernando Pessoa essence desire sleep Multipliquei-me para me sentir. Fernando Pessoa Never having discovered qualities in myself which could attract someone else, I could never believe that anyone felt attracted to me. Fernando Pessoa quality might believe There's something vile (and all the more vile because ridiculous) in the tendency of feeble men to make universal tragedies out of the sad comedies of their private woes. Fernando Pessoa woe tragedy men The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart. Fernando Pessoa chill heart feels
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