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It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.

Fernando Pessoa

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Fernando Pessoa
Age: 47 †
Born: 1888
Born: June 13
Died: 1935
Died: November 30
Author
Essayist
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
Lisboa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
Alberto Caeiro
Ricardo Reis
Bernardo Soares
Pessoa
Someone
Since
Existed
States
State
Leading
Without
Lasts
Wrote
Thinking
Happiness
Mental
Life
Last
Havens
Often
Haven
Felt
Lived
Vicarious
Else
Months
Slumber

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In the very corner of my soul there is an altar to a different god.
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I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.
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Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets?
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To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.
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Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to renunciation. Better to dream than to be.
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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.
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My soul's the present shadow of a presence gone.
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THIRD WATCHER Let her speak. Don't interrupt. She knows words that mermaids taught her...I'm falling asleep in order to hear her...Go on, sister, go on...My heart aches because I wasn't you when you dreamed at the seashore.
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I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist. I’m the space between what I’d like to be and what others made of me. Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.
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There is no safe standard to tell man from animals.
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If after I die, people want to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. They only need two dates: the date of my birth and the date of my death. Between one and another, every day is mine.
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I belong to a generation - assuming that this generation includes others besides me - that lost its faith in the gods of the old religions as well as in the gods of modern nonreligions. I reject Jehova as I reject humanity.
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Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions.
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I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
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I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.
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Solitude desolates me company oppresses me.
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There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
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pg 9, The consciousness of life's unconsciousness is the oldest tax levied on the intelligence.
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Strength without agility is a mere mass.
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