Fernando Pessoa Quotes

Portuguese poet, writer, and philosopher (1888–1935); creator of the heteronymic system including Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, and Bernardo Soares

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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.

Bio from: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Portrait adapted from: Wikimedia Commons, S.A. e Maria José de Lencastre (Public domain / CC0)

Pen Names: Alberto Caeiro • Álvaro de Campos • Ricardo Reis • Bernardo Soares

Native Name: Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa

Alternative Names: Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

From Wikidata (CC0)

Engraved portrait of Fernando Pessoa, facing right

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I've always wanted to be liked. It grieved me that I was treated with indifference. Left an orphan by Fortune, I wanted — like all orphans — to be the object of someone's affection. This need has always been a hunger that went unsatisfied, and so thoroughly have I adapted to this inevitable hunger that I sometimes wonder if I really feel the need to eat.

Whatever be the case, life pains me.

When I write, I solemnly visit myself.

Original: Sou todas essa coisas, embora o não queira, no fundo confuso da minha sensibilidade fatal.

Original: Fiel à palavra dada e à ideia tida. Tudo o mais é com Deus!

Original: Ser compreendido é prostituir-se.

Isto está tudo decadente: já nem decadentes há.

Original: E assim como sonho, raciocino se quiser, porque isso é apenas uma outra espécia de sonho.

Dios me creó para que yo lo imitara de noche. Él es el Sol, yo soy la Luna. Mi luz flota sobre todo lo que es fútil o ha terminado, fuego fatuo, márgenes de río, pantanos y sombras.

I have found out that reading is a slavish sort of dreaming. If I must dream, why not my own dreams?

Eu adoro todas as coisas E o meu coração é um albergue aberto toda a noite. Tenho pela vida um interesse ávido Que busca compreendê-la sentindo-a muito. Amo tudo, animo tudo, empresto humanidade a tudo, Aos homens e às pedras, às almas e às máquinas.

I read and am liberated. I acquire objectivity. I cease being myself and so scattered. And what I read, instead of being like a nearly invisible suit that sometimes oppresses me, is the external world's tremendous and remarkable clarity, the sun that sees everyone, the moon that splotches the still earth with shadows, the wide expanses that end in the sea, the blackly solid trees whose tops greenly wave, the steady peace of ponds on farms, the terraced slopes with their paths overgrown by grape-vines.

I always live in the present. The future I can't know. The past I no longer have.

Sometimes, when I wake up at night, I feel invisible hands weaving my destiny.

As vezes ouço passar o vento; e só de ouvir o vento passar, vale a pena ter nascido

Whoever lives like me doesn't die: he terminates, wilts, devegetates. The place where he was remains without him being there; the street where he walked remains without him being seen on it; the house where he lived is inhabited by not-him. That's all, and we call it nothing; but not even this tragedy of negation can be staged to applause, for we don't even know for sure if it's nothing, we, these vegetable manifestations of both truth and life, dust on both the outside and the inside of the panes, grandchildren of Destiny and stepchildren of God, who married Eternal Night when she was widowed by the Chaos that fathered us.