916 Quotes by Fernando Pessoa

His voice was dull and tremulous, the voice of one who hopes for nothing, because all hope is vain.

I have all the conditions for happiness, save happiness. The conditions are detached from one another.

A physical nausea, prompted by all of life, was born in the moment I woke up. A horror at the prospect of having to live got up with me out of bed. Everything seemed hollow, and I had the chilling impression that there is no solution for whatever the problem may be.

I feel as if I’m always on the verge of waking up.

I find the present monotonous and absurd spectacle of the world outside me so completely lacking in value or nobility that I can scarcely conceive of it as being the world.

It was just a moment, and I saw myself. I can no longer even say what I was. And now I’m sleepy, because I think – I don’t know why – that the meaning of it all is to sleep.

And when the lie begins to give us pleasure, let us speak the truth in order to lie to the lie.

On the road halfway between faith and criticism stands the inn of reason. Reason is faith in what can be understood without faith, but it’s still a faith, since to understand presupposes that there’s something understandable.

It’s human to want what we need, and it’s human to desire what we don’t need but find desirable.