Fernando Pessoa citations

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa est un écrivain, critique, polémiste et poète portugais trilingue . Né le 13 juin 1888 à Lisbonne, ville où il meurt des suites de son alcoolisme le 30 novembre 1935, il a vécu une partie de son enfance à Durban en Afrique du Sud.

Théoricien de la littérature engagée dans une époque troublée par la guerre et les dictatures, inventeur inspiré par Cesário Verde du sensationnisme,, ses vers mystiques et sa prose poétique ont été les principaux agents du surgissement du modernisme au Portugal. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. juin 1888 – 30. novembre 1935   •   Autres noms Ferdinando Pessoa, Ֆերնանտո Բեսոա
Fernando Pessoa photo
Fernando Pessoa: 300   citations 0   J'aime

Fernando Pessoa citations célèbres

Fernando Pessoa Citations

“Surviens toi à toi même.”

Le Chemin du serpent, recueil posthume

Fernando Pessoa: Citations en anglais

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create a raw landscape within us, a sun eternally setting on what we are.”

Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196

“I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

Repudiei sempre que me compreendessem. Ser compreendido é prostituir-se. Prefiro ser tomado a sério como o que não sou, ignorado humanamente, com decência e naturalidade.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 128

“I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

A literatura é a maneira mais agradável de ignorar a vida.
Variante: To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 116

“In order to understand, I destroyed myself.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 73
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Para compreender, destruí-me.

“I'm nothing,
I'll always be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me.”

Não sou nada.
Nunca serei nada.
Não posso querer ser nada.
À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), Tabacaria ["The Tobacconist's" or "The Tobacco Shop"] (15 January 1928)
Variant translations:
I am nothing.
Never shall be anything.
Cannot will to be anything.
This apart, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
trans. Jonathan Griffin, in Selected Poems (Penguin Books, 1974), p. 111
I am not nothing.
I will never be nothing.
I cannot ever want to be nothing.
Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
In Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 649
I am nothing.
I shall never be anything.
I cannot even wish to be anything.
Apart from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.
Variante: I am nothing.
I will never be anything.
I cannot wish to be anything.
Bar that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.

“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.”

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

“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 livre 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.”

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

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

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

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

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

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

Fernando Pessoa livre 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.

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

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

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

“No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it.”

Não há nenhuma ideia inteligente que possa ganhar aceitação geral sem ser misturada antes com um pouco de estupidez.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 104

“My past is everything I failed to be.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

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

“I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“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 livre 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

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

Fernando Pessoa livre The Book of Disquiet

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

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