I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by. Fernando Pessoa More Quotes by Fernando Pessoa More Quotes From Fernando Pessoa No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it. Fernando Pessoa intelligent acceptance stupid 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. Fernando Pessoa dream character book I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays. Fernando Pessoa empty actors play 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. Fernando Pessoa book-of-disquiet poet opinion My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. Fernando Pessoa distance dream children In order to understand, I destroyed myself. Fernando Pessoa self-destruction destruction order My soul's the present shadow of a presence gone. Fernando Pessoa shadow soul gone To feel today what one felt yesterday isn't to feel - it's to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today's living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost. Fernando Pessoa yesterday remember today My past is everything I failed to be. Fernando Pessoa my-past failure past There's no regret more painful than the regret of things that never were. Fernando Pessoa no-regrets regret painful I never meant to be but a dreamer. Fernando Pessoa dreamer meant-to-be I believe that saying a thing is to keep its virtues and take away its terror. Fernando Pessoa i-believe virtue believe Look, there's no metaphysics on earth but chocolates. Fernando Pessoa halloween food love 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. Fernando Pessoa done real dream Oh salty sea, how much of your salt Is tears from Portugal? Fernando Pessoa portugal tears sea Once we're able to see this world as an illusion and a phantasm, then we can see everything that happens to us as a dream, as something that pretended to exist while we were sleeping. And we will become subtly and profoundly indifferent towards all of life's setbacks and calamities. Those who die turned a corner, which is why we've stopped seeing them; those who suffer pass before us like a nightmare, if we feel, or like an unpleasant daydream, if we think. And even our own suffering won't be more than this nothingness. Fernando Pessoa dream sleep thinking It's not demons (who at least have a human face) but Hell itself that seems to be laughing inside me, it's the croaking madness of the dead universe, the spinning cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds blowing blackly in the wind, formless and timeless, without a God who created it, without even its own self, impossibly whirling in the absolute darkness as the one and only reality, everything. Fernando Pessoa self wind reality There's a tiredness of abstract inteligence, and it's the most horrible of tirednesses. It doesn't weight on you like the tiredness of the body, nor does it worry you like the tiredness of knowledge and emotion. It's a weightiness of the conscience of the world, an inability of the soul to breathe. Fernando Pessoa inability soul worry 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! Fernando Pessoa weakness pain giving 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
