Quote

We’ve been devastated by the severest and deadliest drought in history – that of our profound awareness of the futility of all effort and the vanity of all plans.

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
Vanity
Profound
Awareness
Plans
Severest
Effort
Deadliest
History
Drought
Devastated
Futility

More quotes by Fernando Pessoa

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I feel as if I'm always on the verge of waking up.
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I know not what tomorrow will bring.
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In the very corner of my soul there is an altar to a different god.
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Multipliquei-me para me sentir.
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Should you ask me if I'm happy, I'll answer that I'm not.
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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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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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Every man who deserves to be famous knows it is not worth the trouble.
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To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.
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I crave time in all its duration, and I want to be myself unconditionally.
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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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To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.
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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.
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To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.
Fernando Pessoa
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Wise is he who enjoys the show offered by the world.
Fernando Pessoa
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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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I want to be a work of art, at least in my soul, since I can’t be one in my body.
Fernando Pessoa
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I search and can't find myself. I belong in chrysanthemum time, sharp in calla lily elongations. God made my soul into an ornamental thing.
Fernando Pessoa
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Myth is the nothing that is all.
Fernando Pessoa
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The human soul is an abyss
Fernando Pessoa