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It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living.

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
Shy
Noble
Gift
Living
Great
Illustrious

More quotes by Fernando Pessoa

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Fraternity has subtleties.
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There’s enough metaphysics in not thinking about anything.
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I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.
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pg 9, The consciousness of life's unconsciousness is the oldest tax levied on the intelligence.
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Who am I to myself? Just a feeling of mine.
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I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with everything I could have said.
Fernando Pessoa
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No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it.
Fernando Pessoa
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To be great, be whole Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you. Be whole in everything. Put all you are Into the smallest thing you do. So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor Because it blooms up above.
Fernando Pessoa
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The end of lower art is to please, the end of average art is to raise the top, the end of superior art is to free.
Fernando Pessoa
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My soul's the present shadow of a presence gone.
Fernando Pessoa
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I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.
Fernando Pessoa
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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.
Fernando Pessoa
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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.
Fernando Pessoa
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The unnatural and the strange have a perfume of their own
Fernando Pessoa
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If this be to have sense, if to be awake Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things, For the rarer potion mine own dreams I'll take And for truth commune with imaginings
Fernando Pessoa
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In this metallic age of barbarians, only a relentless cultivation of our ability to dream, to analyse and to captivate can prevent our personality from degenerating into nothing or else into a personality like all the rest.
Fernando Pessoa
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And I have the others in me. Even when I’m far away from them, I am forced to live with them. Even when I’m all alone, crowds surround me. I have no place to flee to, unless I were to flee from myself.
Fernando Pessoa
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Action men are the unvoluntary slaves of wise men.
Fernando Pessoa
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Faithful to the word given and the idea had.
Fernando Pessoa
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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.
Fernando Pessoa