Quotes from book
The Book of Disquiet

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."

Fernando Pessoa photo

“pg.9 "In my heart there's a peaceful anguish, and my calm is made of resignation.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Everything I sought in life I abandoned for the sake of the search. I'm like one who absentmindedly looks for he doesn't know what, having forgotten it in his dreaming as the search got under way.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Everything stated or expressed by man is a note in the margin of a completely erased text. From what's in the note we can extract the gist of what must have been in the text, but there's always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Everything is theater.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Life is full of paradoxes, as roses are of thorns.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Life is whatever we conceive it to be.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“As I walk, I construct perfect sentences that I cannot remember later at home. I don’t know if the ineffable poetry of those sentences derived from what they were or from their never having been (written).”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“From so much self-revising, I’ve destroyed myself. From so much self-thinking, I’m now my thoughts and not I”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“My boredom with everything has numbed me.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“I realize that I was all error and deviation, that I never lived, that I existed only in so far as I filled time with consciousness and thought.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“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.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“…to know how to think with emotions and to feel with intellect…”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“And I have the others in me. Even when I’m far away from them, I am forced to live with them. Even when I’m all alone, crowds surround me. I have no place to flee to, unless I were to flee from myself.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“I don't mourn the loss of my childhood; I mourn because everything, including (my) childhood, is lost.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Blessed are those who never entrust their life to no one.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
Original: Benditos os que não confiam a vida a ninguém.
Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“what has happened to us has happened to everyone or only us; if to everyone, then it's no novelty, and if only to us, then it won't be understood.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Every gesture is a revolutionary act.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 274
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Todo o gesto é um acto revolucionário.