Quotes from book
The Book of Disquiet

Name: The Book of Disquiet
Author: Fernando Pessoa

Fernando PessoaOriginal title Livro do Desassossego, Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guarda‐livros na cidade de Lisboa (Portuguese, 1982)

The Book of Disquiet is a work by the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa . Published posthumously, The Book of Disquiet is a fragmentary lifetime project, left unedited by the author, who introduced it as a "factless autobiography."

“I will necessarily say what it seems to me, given that I'm me.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 162
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Hei-de por força dizer o que me parece, visto que sou eu.

“I don't believe in the landscape.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 286
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Não acredito na paisagem.

“What's most worthless about dreams is that everybody has them.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 145
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O que há de mais reles nos sonhos é que todos os têm.

“You breathe better when you're rich.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 95
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Respira-se melhor quando se é rico.

“They were two and beautiful and wanted to be something else; love delayed itself to them in the tedium of the future, and regret of what would happen to be was already being the daughter of the love they hadn't had.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 288
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Eram dois e belos e desejavam ser outra coisa; o amor tardava-lhes no tédio do futuro, e a saudade do que haveria de ser vinha já sendo filha do amor que não tinham tido.

“I say it because I don't believe.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Digo-o porque não acredito.

“Liberty is the possibility of isolation.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 246
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A liberdade é a possibilidade do isolamento.

“To think is to destroy. The very process of thought indicates it for the same thought, as thinking is decomposing.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Pensar é destruir. O próprio processo do pensamento o indica para o mesmo pensamento, porque pensar é decompor.

“Art lies because it's social.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 232
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A arte mente porque é social

“My homeland is the portuguese language.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 230
Translation variants:
My fatherland is the Portuguese language.
My nation is the Portuguese language.
My country is the Portuguese language.
My home is the Portuguese language.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Minha Pátria é a língua portuguesa.

“I never was but an isolated bon vivant, which is absurd; or a mystic bon vivant, which is an impossible thing.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 271
a possible play on Tertullian's: "credo quia absurdum" (I believe because it's absurd), "credo quia impossibilis est" (I believe because it's impossible).
Richard Zenith translates boémio as bohemian, not bon vivant.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Nunca fui mais que um boémio isolado, o que é um absurdo; ou um boémio místico, o que é uma coisa impossível.

“Everything was asleep as if the universe was a mistake.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 60
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Dormia tudo como se o universo fosse um erro.

“I never cared about whatever tragic event happened in China. It's faraway decoration, even if in blood and plague.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 164
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Nunca me pesou o que de trágico se passasse na China. É decoração longínqua, ainda que a sangue e peste.

“They bring me faith like a closed package in someone else's plate. They want me to accept it so that I don't open it.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Trazem-me a fé como um embrulho fechado numa salva alheia. Querem que o aceite para que não o abra.

“I believe that saying a thing is to keep its virtues and take away its terror.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 55
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Creio que dizer uma coisa é conservar-lhe a virtude e tirar-lhe o terror.

“Thing thrown to a corner, rag fallen on the road, my ignoble being feigns itself in front of life.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 64
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Coisa arrojada a um canto, trapo caído na estrada, meu ser ignóbil ante a vida finge-se.

“My curiosity sister of larks.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 219
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A minha curiosidade irmã das cotovias

“Some sensations are sleeps that take up all the extent of the mind like a fog, don't let us think, don't let us act, don't let us be clearly.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 98
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Há sensações que são sonos, que ocupam como uma névoa toda a extensão do espírito, que não deixam pensar, que não deixam agir, que não deixam claramente ser.

“Then a overflowing desire comes to me, absurd, of a sort of satanism before Satan, in that one day […] an escape out of God can be found and the deepest of us stops, I don't know how, to be a part of being or not being.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Os Grandes Trechos, s/n. Translated from the Portuguese Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006
The Book of Disquiet
Original: E então vem-me o desejo transbordante, absurdo, de uma espécie de satanismo que precedeu Satã, de que um dia [...] se encontre uma fuga para fora de Deus e o mais profundo de nós deixe, não sei como, de fazer parte do ser ou do não ser.

“Every day things happen in the world that cannot be explained by any law of things we know. Every day they're mentioned and forgotten, and the same mystery that brought them takes them away, transforming their secret into oblivion. Such is the law by which things that can't be explained must be forgotten. The visible world goes on as usual in the broad daylight. Otherness watches us from the shadows.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

A Factless Autobiography, number 424, trans. Richard Zenith, Penguin Classics edition
The Book of Disquiet