There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and … - Fernando Pessoa
""
There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and women. There are phrases from literary works that have a positively human personality. There are passages from my own writing that chill me with fright, so distinctly do I feel them as people, so sharply outlined do they appear against the walls of my room, at night, in shadows... I've written sentences whose sound, read out loud or silently (impossible to hide their sound), can only be of something that acquired absolute exteriority and a full-fledged soul.
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.
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, S.A. e Maria José de Lencastre (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Pen Names:
Alberto Caeiro
•
Álvaro de Campos
•
Ricardo Reis
•
Bernardo Soares
Native Name:
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Alternative Names:
Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
من سيقرأ أشعاري؟ صوب أية أَيْد ستتجه؟ زهرة أنا قطفوني من أجل متعة الأعين شجرة نزعوا ثمارها للأفواه نهر أنا و قَدَرُ مياهي أن تفارقني، مقهور، و مع ذلك، تقريباً، مسرور كَمَنْ أضجرتهُ ديمومة حزنه.
Be what I think? But I think of being so many things!
Go Premium
Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.
For me life is an inn where I must stay until the carriage from the abyss calls to collect me [...] I could consider this inn to be a prison, since I'm compelled to stay here; I could consider it a kind of club, because I meet other people here. However, unlike others, I am neither impatient nor sociable. I leave those who chatter in the living room, from where the cosy sound of music and voices reaches me. I sit at the door and fill my eyes and ears with the colours and sounds of the landscape and slowly, just for myself, I sing vague songs that I compose while I wait. Night will fall on all of us and the carriage will arrive. I enjoy the breeze given to me and the soul given to me to enjoy it and I ask no more questions, look no further. If what I leave written in the visitors' book is one day read by others and entertains them on their journey, that's fine. If no one reads it or is entertained by it, that's fine too.
