“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.”

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of c…" by Fernando Pessoa?
Fernando Pessoa photo
Fernando Pessoa 288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935

Related quotes

Fernando Pessoa photo
Grace Hopper photo

“A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

This saying appears to be due to John Augustus Shedd; it was quoted in "Grace Hopper : The Youthful Teacher of Us All" by Henry S. Tropp in Abacus Vol. 2, Issue 1 (Fall 1984) ISSN 0724-6722 . She did repeat this saying on multiple occasions, but she called it "a motto that has stuck with me" and did not claim coinage. Additional variations and citations may be found at Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/09/safe-harbor/
Misattributed

Seneca the Younger photo

“If one does not know to which port is sailing, no wind is favorable.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, sent this quotation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 1, 1936, in a note of New Year greetings, with this comment: "Here is an expression from Holmes which, if it has missed you, is so good you may find a use for it in one of your 'fireside' talks". Reported in Carroll Kilpatrick, ed., Roosevelt and Daniels (1952), p. 159.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Tom Robbins photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Port-wine, he says, when rich and sound,
Warms his old bones like nectar:
And as the inns, where it is found,
Are his especial hunting-ground,
We call him the INN-SPECTRE.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Of "Inspector Kobold", a spectre
Canto 3, "Scarmoges"
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Epictetus photo

“A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Fragment xvi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

Czeslaw Milosz photo

“The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation
That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets,
And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"The Fall" (1975), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

Related topics