Home › Authors › Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa Quotes
1888–1935 Portugal
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.
Also known as: Pessoa, Pessoa, Fernando
Random Fernando Pessoa quote
189 quotes
Every man who deserves to be famous knows it is not worth the trouble.
A Celebridade (1915)
Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.
Contradiction is the essence of the universe.
Was it worthwhile?
Ah, to be you while being I!
The poet is a pretender.
My heart is a little larger than the entire universe.
Could it think, the heart would stop beating.
Thing thrown to a corner, rag fallen on the road, my ignoble being feigns itself in front of life.
I have found out that reading is a slavish sort of dreaming. If I must dream, why not my own dreams?
I'm nothing,
To pretend is to know oneself.
No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it.
Metaphysics is a consequence of not feeling very well.
Tabacaria (1928)
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
It's love that is inescapable.
Nature is the difference between the soul and God.
What we see is not what we see but what we are.
Living seems to me a metaphysical mistake on the part of matter, an oversight on the part of inaction.
There are those that even God exploits, and they are prophets and saints in the vacuousness of the world.
Topics Fernando Pessoa is quoted on
Works