916 Quotes by Fernando Pessoa

We do not possess our sensations, and through them we cannot possess ourselves.

I am not a pessimist. I suffer and I complain, but I don’t know if suffering is the general rule or if it is human to suffer... I am not a pessimist, I am merely sad.

Nothing irks me more than the vocabulary of social responsibility. The very word ‘duty’ is unpleasant to me, like an unwanted guest. But the terms ‘civic duty’, ‘solidarity’, ‘humanitarianism’ and others of the same ilk disgust me like rubbish dumped out of a window right on top of me. I’m offended by the implicit assumption that these expressions pertain to me, that I should find them worthwhile and even meaningful.

The only intellectual attitude worthy of a superior creature is a feeling of calm, cool compassion for everything that is not himself.

I belong to a generation – assuming that this generation includes others besides me – that lost its faith in the gods of the old religions as well as in the gods of modern nonreligions. I reject Jehova as I reject humanity.

To narrate is to create, whilst to live is merely to be lived.

I’m always horrified whenever I finish anything. Horrified and desolate. My instinct for perfection should inhibit me from ever finishing anything; it should in fact inhibit me from ever beginning. But I become distracted and do things. My accomplishments are not the product of my applied will but a giving away of my will. I begin because I don’t have the strength to think; I finish because I don’t have soul enough to stop things. This book is my cowardice.

And as well as I dream, I reason if I want, for that’s just another kind of dream.

My life is so sad, and yet I do not even consider weeping over it; my hours are so false, and I do not even dream the gesture that might end them.