Top 15 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.

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

Native Name: Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa

Alternative Names: Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

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Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

The Book of Disquiet · November 1, 2002 Verified in 2 sources · 1 more available Sign up to see the complete provenance

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The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.

My past is everything I failed to be.

The Book of Disquiet · November 1, 2002 Verified in 2 sources · 1 more available Sign up to see the complete provenance

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I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.

My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren't attached.

No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it

There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.

We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept — our own selves — that we love.

I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect

I wasn't meant for reality, but life came and found me.

In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

I suffer from life and from other people. I can't look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.

I am nothing.
I'll never be anything.
I couldn't want to be something.
Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world.

My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.

I feel as if I'm always on the verge of waking up.