Portuguese poet, writer, and philosopher (1888–1935); creator of the heteronymic system including Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, and Bernardo Soares
Fernando Pessoa (13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet and writer, most of whose work was published posthumously. He wrote frequently under heteronyms, alter egos with developed personalities, biographies, jobs, habits, attitudes, addresses, etc., who sometimes quoted and interacted with each other and other people.
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From Wikidata (CC0)
Original: Não acredito na paisagem.
Ποιος θα μ' εκανε ν' ακουσω καποιου την ανθρωπινη φωνη
Που θα ομολογουσε οχι μιαν αμαρτια, αλλα μιαν ατιμια
Που θα διηγιοταν οχι μια βιαιη πραξη, αλλα μια δειλη!
Οχι, ολοι ειναι το Ιδανικο, να, τους ακουω και μου μιλουν.
Υπαρχει κανεις σ' αυτο τον κοσμο να μου ομολογησει
Πως εστω μια φορα ηταν κακος;
Ω πριγκιπες, αδελφια μου,
Βλακες, ειμαι μπουχτισμενος απο ημιθεους!
Που εχει ανθρωπους σ' αυτον τον κοσμο;
Δηλαδη εγω ειμαι ο μονος
Λαθεμενος και κακος σ' αυτη τη γη;
...
Original: É nobre ser tímido, ilustre não saber agir, grande não ter jeito para viver.
Original: Fiel à palavra dada e à ideia tida. Tudo o mais é com Deus!
Knowing how easily even the smallest things torture me, I deliberately avoid contact with them. A cloud passing in front of the sun is enough to make me suffer, how then should I not suffer in the darkness of the endlessly overcast sky of my own life?
My isolation is not a search for happiness, which I do not have the heart to win, nor for peace, which one finds only when it will never more be lost; what I seek is sleep, extinction, a small surrender.
Original: Passar dos fantasmas da fé para os espectros da razão é somente ser mudado de cela.
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I sometimes think, with a sad delight, that if one day, in a future I no longer belong to, these sentences, that I write, last with praise, I will at last have the people who understand me, those mine, the true family to be born in and be loved. [...] I will only be understood in effigy, when affection no longer repays the dead the unaffection that was, when living.
To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat — some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.