Fernando Pessoa

“Nadie me ofende si me contradice: para una criatura como yo, de opiniones tan poco sólidas, y de sentimientos tan cambiantes, la discrepancia no tiene aquel sentido de agravio que asume para los firmes y para los dogmáticos, porque yo vivo en habitual discordancia conmigo mismo”.”

“Again I see you, But me I don't see!, The magical mirror in which I saw myself has been broken, And only a piece of me I see in each fatal fragment - Only a piece of you and me!...”

“Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!”

“...Queen, goodbye forever!Your wings were sunbeams, and my feet are clayI'll never be well if I don't get to bedI never was well unless I was stretched out across the universe.”

“But I am not perfect in my way of putting thingsBecause I lack the divine simplicityOf being only what I appear to be.”

“We are two abysses - a well staring at the sky.”

“My hapless peers with their lofty dreams--how I envy and despise them! I'm with the others, the even more hapless, who have no-one but themselves to whom they can tell their dreams and show what would be verses if they wrote them. I'm with those poor slobs who have no books to show, who have no literature beside their own soul, and who are suffocating to death due to the fact that they exist without having taken that mysterious, transcendental exam that makes one eligible to live.”

“Tenho sonhado mais que o que Napoleão fez.Tenho apertado ao peito hipotético mais humanidades do que Cristo,Tenho feito filosofias em segredo que nenhum Kant escreveu.Mas sou, e talvez serei sempre, o da mansarda,Ainda que não more nela;Serei sempre... o que não nasceu para isso;Serei sempre... só o que tinha qualidades;Serei sempre o que esperou que lhe abrissem a porta ao pé de uma parede sem porta,E cantou a cantiga do Infinito numa capoeira,E ouviu a voz de Deus num poço tapado.Crer em mim? Não, nem em nada.”

“Ich bin es müde, geträumt zu haben, freilich nicht müde zu träumen.”

“Alles ist so vergeblich wie ein Herumstochern in Asche und so vage wie der Augenblick, bevor der Morgen graut. Und das Licht fällt so vollkommen und heiter auf die Dinge, vergoldet sie so prächtig mit traurig lächelnder Wirklichkeit! Das ganze Mysterium der Welt kommt herab zu mir, bis es vor meinen Augen Banalität und Straße wird. Wie sich doch Alltag und Geheimnis berühren in unserer unmittelbaren Nähe! Hier, an der lichten Oberfläche dieses vielschichtigen menschlichen Lebens, lächelt die Zeit ungewiss auf den Lippen des Mysteriums! Wie modern dies alles klingt! Und im Grunde so alt, so geheimnisvoll, mit einem so anderen Sinn behaftet als dem, der in all dem leuchtet!”

“Lezten Endes bleibt von diesem Tage das, was vom gestrigen blieb und vom morgigen bleiben wird: die unersättliche und nicht zählbare Begierde, immer derselbe und ein anderer zu sein.”

“Ich bin der Zwischenraum zwischen dem, was ich bin, und dem, was ich nicht bin, zwischen dem, was ich träume, und dem, was das Leben aus mir gemacht hat, der abstrakte und leibliche Mittelwert zwischen Dingen, die nichts sind, da ich ebenfalls nichts bin. Welche Unruhe, wenn ich fühle, welch Unbehagen, wenn ich denke, welche Nutzlosigkeit, wenn ich will!”

“Und so schleppe ich mein Leben damit hin, das zu tun, was ich nicht will, und das zu erträumen, was ich nicht haben kann, absurd wie eine stehen-gebliebene öffentliche Uhr. Nur die zarte, aber feste Sensibilität, der lange, aber vollauf bewusste Traum, bilden in ihrer Gesamtheit mein Halbschattenprivileg.”

“To feel today what one felt yesterday isn't to feel - it's to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today's living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost.”

“Se depois de eu morrer, quiserem escrever a minha biografia, não há nada mais simples. Têm só duas datas: a da minha nascença e a da minha morte. Entre uma e outra coisa, todos os dias são meus”

“Güte ist das Feingefühl roher Seelen.”

“But my sadness is comforting Because it’s right and natural And because it’s what the soul should feel When it already thinks it exists And the hand pick flowers And the soul takes no notice.”

“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”

“Look, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates.”

“To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.”

“Ser compreendido é prostituir-se.”

“Se te é impossível viver só, nasceste escravo.”

“Na vida de hoje, o mundo só pertence aos estúpidos, aos insensíveis e aos agitados. O direito a viver e a triunfar conquista-se hoje quase pelos mesmos processos por que se conquista o internamento num manicómio: a incapacidade de pensar, a amoralidade e a hiperexcitação.”

“Each of us is several, is many,is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways. Livro Do Desassossego”

“Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.”

“I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing: it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.”

“...the painful intensity of my sensations, even when they're happy ones; the blissful intensity of my sensations, even when they're sad.”

“En mi corazón hay una paz de angustia, y mi sosiego está hecho de resignación.”

“Sem a loucura que é o homemMais que a besta sadia,Cadáver adiado que procria?"O sonho é ver as formas invisíveisDa distância imprecisa, e, com sensíveisMovimentos da esp'rança e da vontade,Buscar na linha fria do horizonteA árvore, a praia, a flor, a ave, a fonte -Os beijos merecidos da Verdade. "(...)Tudo vale a penaSe a alma não é pequena.Quem quere passar além do BojadorTem que passar além da dor. "Triste de quem é feliz!Vive porque a vida dura.Nada na alma lhe dizMais que a lição da raiz -Ter por vida a sepultura."Ser descontente é ser homem. "Tenho meus olhos quentes de água. "'Screvo meu livro à beira-mágoa. "Quando, meu Sonho e meu Senhor?”

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”

“Permanezcamos así eternamente, como la estampa de un hombre en un vitral frente a la de una mujer en otro vitral....Entre nosotros, sombras cuyos pasos suenan fríos, son de la humanidad que pasa....Murmullos de plegarias, secretos de (....) pasaran entre nosotros.....A veces el aire se puebla de (.....) de inciensos. Y nosotros siempre en los mismos vitrales, en los colores que el sol nos dará al tocarnos, en las líneas impuestas por la noche al caer...Los siglos no incidirán en nuestro silencio vítreo....Fuera de nosotros pasaran civilizaciones, estallaran revueltas, se sucederán en torbellino las fiestas, pasaran, mansos, pueblos de sólida rutina...Y nosotros, oh, amor mío irreal, tendremos siempre el mismo gesto inútil, la misma existencia falsa. Hasta que un día, al cabo de varios siglos de imperios, la Iglesia se derrumbe y todo se acabe....Pero nosotros, que de todo eso nada sabemos, perduraremos sin embargo, no se en que espacio, no se cómo, no se cuánto tiempo, vitrales eternos, horas de ingenuo diseño pintado por un artista cualquiera que duerme hace mucho tiempo bajo una tumba goda donde dos ángeles congelan en sus manos de mármol la idea de la muerte.”

“To have opinions is to sell out to youself. To have no opinions is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.”

“Tudo vale a pena quando a alma não é pequena”

“Triste de quem é feliz !Vive porque a vida dura.Nada na alma lhe dizMais que a lição da raizTer por vida a sepultura.”

“Tenho amigos para saber quem eu sou.”

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

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