Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French...
NationalityPortuguese
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1888
CityLisbon, Portugal
CountryPortugal
My homeland is the portuguese language.
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
Direct experience is the evasion, or hiding place of those devoid of imagination.
I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.
Sometimes, when I wake up at night, I feel invisible hands weaving my destiny.
Nature is the difference between the soul and God.
Sailing is necessary, living is not necessary.
Art gives us the illusion of liberation from the sordid business of being.
Who am I to myself? Just a feeling of mine.
I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.
It's in an inland sea that the river of my life ended.
Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.
I never go to where's a risk. I'm frightened of dangers down to boredom.
Literature exists because the world isn't enough.