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

Add quote

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.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

Original: Nunca me pesou o que de trágico se passasse na China. É decoração longínqua, ainda que a sangue e peste.

Todo o mal do mundo vem de nos importarmos uns com os outros,
Quer para fazer bem, quer para fazer mal.

To live is to be someone else. Feeling is impossible if we feel today as we felt yesterday: to feel today the same thing we felt yesterday is not to feel at all — it's merely to remember today what we felt yesterday, since today we are the living cadaver of yesterday's lost life.

They spoke to me of people, and of humanity.
But I've never seen people, or humanity.
I've seen various people, astonishingly dissimilar,
Each separated from the next by an unpeopled space.

To possess something is to lose it. To feel something without possessing it is to keep it, because in that way one extracts its essence.

I sleep and unsleep.

I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.

Mi espíritu está todo hecho de vacilación y duda. Nada, para mí, es o no puede ser positivo; todo oscila a mí alrededor, y yo con ello; sólo soy incertidumbre. Todo es para mí incoherencia y cambio. Todo es misterio y todo es significante. Cada cosa es un símbolo «desconocido» de lo Desconocido.

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.

Original: Achego-me à minha secretária como a um baluarte contra a vida.

Action men are the unvoluntary slaves of wise men.

تحملين زهرة في يدك / لا أعرف إن كنت ستعطيني إياها. / أما الزهور التي على وجهك / فتعرفين كيف تحتفظين بها

Ah, to be you while being I!
To have your glad unconsciousness
And be conscious of it!

There is no safe standard to tell man from animals.

I've dreamed a lot. I'm tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.