916 Quotes by Fernando Pessoa

I will be what I want. But I will have to want what I’ll be. Success is in having success, not conditions for success.

We live by action – by acting on desire. Those of us who don’t know how to want – whether geniuses or beggars – are related by impotence.

Let us not be deceived by hope, because it betrays, or by love, because it grows weary, or by life, because it satiates but does not sate, or even by death, because it brings more than you want and less than you expect.

Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn’t what we see but what we are.

To conceive of myself from the outside was my ruin – the ruin of my happiness. I saw myself as others see me, and I despised myself – not because I had character traits that made me worthy of contempt, but because I saw myself through the eyes of others, and felt the contempt they feel towards me. I experienced the humiliation of knowing myself.

Having seen how lucidly and logically certain madmen justify their lunatic ideas to themselves and to others, I can never again be sure of the lucidness of my lucidity.

The higher a man rises, the more things he must do without. There’s no room on the pinnacle except for the man himself. The more perfect he is, the more complete; and the more complete, the less other.

Our Lady of the Hours that Pass, Madonna of stagnant waters and dead algae, Tutelary Goddess of vast deserts and dark landscapes of barren rocks, free me from my youth.

I know nothing and my heart aches.