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“All problems are unsolvable. The essence of the existence of a problem is that there is no solution. Looking for a fact means there is no fact. To think is not to know how to be.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 123
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Todos os problemas são insolúveis. A essência de haver um problema é não haver solução. Procurar um facto significa não haver um facto. Pensar é não saber existir.

“I know not what tomorrow will bring”

Fernando Pessoa

Last sentence (29 November 1935), quoted in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe by Richard Zenith (Penguin Classics, 2006)

“We, all who live, have
A life that is lived
And another life that is thought,
And the only life we have
It's the one that is divided
In right or wrong.”

Fernando Pessoa

“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.”

Fernando Pessoa

Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

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

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“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.)”

Fernando Pessoa

“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.”

Fernando Pessoa

“We are two abysses — a well staring at the sky.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 48
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Somos dois abismos — um poço fitando o céu.

“We never love someone. We just love the idea we have of someone. It's a concept of ours - summing up, ourselves - that we love.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 125
Original: Nunca amamos niguém. Amamos, tão-somente, a ideia que fazemos de alguém. É a um conceito nosso — em suma, é a nós mesmos — que amamos.
Source: The Book of Disquiet

“I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises.
Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was,
I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat.
I was never convinced of what I believed in.
I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through.
Words were my only truth.
When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!”

Fernando Pessoa

“My past is everything I failed to be.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

O meu passado é tudo quanto não consegui ser.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 100

“If you cannot live alone, you were born a slave.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Se te é impossível viver só, nasceste escravo.

“… 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.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., number 168
The Book of Disquiet

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

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 163
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A experiência directa é o subterfúgio, ou o esconderijo, daqueles que são desprovidos de imaginação.

“I take with me the conscience of defeat as a victory banner.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 79
Original: Levo comigo a consciência da derrota como um pendão de vitória.
Source: The Book of Disquiet

“We adore perfection because we can't have it; it would disgust us if we had it. Perfect is inhuman, because human is imperfect.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 249
Original: Adoramos a perfeição, porque não a podemos ter; repugná-la-íamos, se a tivéssemos. O perfeito é o desumano, porque o humano é imperfeito.
Source: The Book of Disquiet

“If, after I die, they should want to write my biography,
There's nothing simpler.
I've just two dates—of my birth, and of my death.
In between the one thing and the other all the days are mine.”

Fernando Pessoa

Se, depois de eu morrer, quiserem escrever a minha biografia,
Não há nada mais simples.
Tem só duas datas—a da minha nascença e a da minha morte.
Entre uma e outra coisa todos os dias são meus.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), "Se, depois de eu morrer" (8 November 1915), trans. Jonathan Griffin.
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“To be great, be whole; don't exaggerate
Or leave out any part of you,
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
The whole moon shines.”

Fernando Pessoa

Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive.
Ricardo Reis (heteronym), Ode (14 February 1933), in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa