30 best phrases of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet
If there is a prominent representative of Portuguese literature and poetry, this is Fernando Pessoa.
Born in Lisbon in 1888, Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa he was an enigmatic and discreet character who, during his time, produced important works on journalism and literature in prose and verse.
- You are interested in reading: "100 phrases from famous books and writers"
The best phrases and reflections of Fernando Pessoa
Through his works, which are still being studied and analyzed today, Pessoa considered himself a journalist by profession but literate by vocation.
In today's article we are going to know 30 of the best reflections of him and phrases extracted from his books and poems.
1. All love letters are ridiculous. They would not be love letters if they were not ridiculous.
Love stories they tend to embrace the incomprehensible.
2. I have to choose what I detest: either the dream, which my intelligence hates, or the action, which my sensibility disgusts; or the action for which I was not born, or the dream for which no one was born. It turns out that since I detest both, I choose neither, but since I sometimes have to dream or act, I mix one thing with the other.
The constant struggle between reason and emotion, embodied in this famous quote by Fernando Pessoa.
3. If after I die they wanted to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. It has only two dates, my birth and my death. Between one and the other, every day is mine.
A philosophy of life based on discretion.
4. Whoever lives like me does not die: he is finished, withers, is unvegetated. The place where he was continues without him being there, the street where he walked continues without him being seen in it, the house he lived in is inhabited by not him.
One of Pessoa's most remembered and studied phrases.
5. I was born at a time when most young people had stopped believing in God for the same reason that their elders had believed in Him.
A reflection on the beliefs and generational change that took place in Portugal during the beginning of the 20th century.
6. Beauty is Greek. But the consciousness that she is Greek is modern.
The Greeks themselves were unaware that they were creating a model of beauty that would transcend their historical time.
7. To have been in a shipwreck or in a battle is something beautiful and glorious; the worst thing is that you had to be there to be there.
A phrase to reflect on wars.
8. Being a poet is not an ambition of mine, it is my way of being alone.
A way of being, according to the great Fernando Pessoa.
9. Not knowing about oneself; That is living. Knowing bad about oneself, that is thinking.
As in many of his writings, Pessoa recognizes that unconsciousness is an elemental part of happiness.
10. Art is the expression of oneself struggling to be absolute.
Transcending times and fashions, that is art.
11. We are avatars of past stupidity.
A curious and very personal way of understanding culture.
12. I have the duty to shut myself up in the house of my spirit and to work as much as I can and as far as I can for the progress of civilization and the broadening of the consciousness of humanity.
A way to express your involvement in the world of letters.
13. The delight of hatred cannot be compared to the delight of being hated.
Awakening envy is one of the great pleasures of life, according to this phrase by Pessoa.
14. Thought is still the best way to get away from thought.
A paradox: only by thinking can we run away from thoughts.
15. My conscience doesn't bother me, but being conscious.
When we are aware we are vigilant of our actions.
16. God is God's best joke.
A phrase for free interpretation.
17. Man is a selfishness mitigated by an indolence.
Self-centeredness, a uniquely human characteristic.
18. Everything that man exposes or expresses is a note in the margin of a totally muted text. More or less, by the meaning of the note, we extract the meaning that was to be that of the text; but there is always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many.
On the different ways of understanding reality.
19. The only attitude worthy of a superior man is to persist tenaciously in an activity that is recognized as useless, the habit of a discipline that is known to be sterile, and the fixed use of norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought whose importance is felt as null.
Persistence is the key behind great findings and achievements.
20. If we think about it, the incomprehensibility of the universe is enough for us; To want to understand it is to be less than men, because to be a man is to know that it is not understood.
A reflection on knowledge.
21. Love is a deadly display of immortality
Through love we express this double condition.
22. Zero is the greatest metaphor. Infinity the greatest analogy. Existence the greatest symbol.
In this sentence, Pessoa mixes mathematical concepts with language concepts.
23. Those who never lived oppressed do not feel freedom.
We are only able to perceive this sensation when we have been deprived of it.
24. We never love anyone: we love only the idea we have of someone. What we love is our concept, that is, ourselves.
Love, according to Pessoa, is after all a self-referential perception.
26. If after I die they wanted to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. It has only two dates - my birth and my death. Between one and the other, every day is mine.
Nothing remains except the experience lived by himself.
27. Be free first; then he asks for freedom.
Only a person with a free thought is capable of claiming freedom for himself and for his fellow men.
28. Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness; because unconsciousness is the foundation of life.
When we are fully conscious we become puppets sculpted by the mercantile society.
29. I write these lines, really badly annotated, not to say this, or to say anything, but to occupy my inattention.
A form of therapy, according to Pessoa, to write his thoughts.
30. With such a lack of people to coexist with, as there is today, what can a man of sensitivity do, but invent his friends, or at least his companions in spirit?
A sad reflection about loneliness, in the eyes of the great Fernando Pessoa.
