Flashback Friday: A Page of Quotes from the Portuguese Poet Philosopher Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, 1914

It's been over ten years since I was introduced to the acclaimed Portuguese poet and prolific writer Fernando Pessoa. The more you read of his work, the more striking his original way of seeing things and expressing them. 

A few additional things are worthy of note. First, that his writings channeled different personalities and characters. He signed them in these various names as if written by other people, writing in different styles. The literary term is heteronym. The second feature of his work is that most of it was published posthumously. His papers had been left in a trunk and only then the magnitude of what he'd be doing privately was revealed.

I personally like the way he approaches things from a fresh and unexpected angle. His observations move me, as does his frequently simple eloquence. Here is an example:

I'm nothing,

I'll always be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me.

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

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"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"

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"My past is everything I failed to be."

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

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"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."

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"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!"

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I am the size of what I see
not my height's size.

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Related Links
Two Poems by Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa on Wikipedia. 
Of special interest are details of Pessoa's heteronyms, pseudonyms and characters.