“To create, I destroyed myself; I made myself external to such a degree within myself that within myself I do not exist except in an external fashion. I am the living setting in which several actors make entrances, putting on several different plays.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
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Fernando Pessoa288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935Related quotes
Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own
Ich setze Mich nicht voraus, weil Ich Mich jeden Augenblick überhaupt erst setze oder schaffe, und nur dadurch Ich bin, dass Ich nicht vorausgesetzt, sondern gesetzt bin, und wiederum nur in dem Moment gesetzt, wo ich mich setze, d.h. Ich bin Schöpfer un Geschöpf in Einem.
Cambridge 1995, p. 135
The Ego and Its Own (1845)
Julie Taymor (1952) American film and theatre director
Academy of Achievement interview (2006)
Context: Where I live is not necessarily in New York City. That's where my apartment is, but I live in Mexico, or I live in Indonesia. I live in Japan. I feel as comfortable in those other cultures, because, in a way, I'm always uncomfortable. I can't explain that, exactly, but I put myself into situations where I'm forced to do something, to create, to respond, to see differently.
Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 1.
Context: All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"
Letter https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml to Asa Gray, 22 May 1860 <br class="br">Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements
Hillel the Elder (-112–9 BC) Mishnah rabbi
Quoted by Jan Lundius, in Does WFP Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?, Inter Press Service News Agency, (December 2020)
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.
Book I (1580), To the Reader
Essais (1595), Book I
“I myself can think of a dozen ways to annihilate all living persons within one hour.”
Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974) Swiss astronomer
Fritz Zwicky, cited in " Idea Man http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/31/1/31-1-maurer.pdf", by Stephen M. Maurer; published in Beam Line (Winter 2001, Vol. 31, No. 1)