Friday, January 28, 2011

More Pessoa

Yesterday I shared two poems by the Portugese poet Fernando Pessoa. The poems had no titles but rather only dates... but these were blog post dates, not the dates of the poems themselves as Pessoa lived a century ago. According to Wikiquote, "Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) 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."

Here is another pocketful of Pessoa to reflect upon.

"No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it."

"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"

"My past is everything I failed to be."

"Stones in the road? I save every single one, one day I´ll build a castle"

"My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while... I'm two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren't attached.

"The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!"

ednote: The picture here in not a likeness of F. Pessoa. Perhaps if in this lifetime time permits I will replace it with a more accurate misrepresentation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"To sail is necessary, to live is not necessary"
Pessoa is probably the best Portuguese language poet ever. And wrote many poems originally written in English too.

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