Iโm beginning to know myself. I donโt exist. Iโm the space between what Iโd like to be and what others made of me. Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.
Fernando PessoaTomorrow I too โ this feeling and thinking soul, the universe I am to myself โ yes, tomorrow I too will be someone who no longer walks these streets, someone others will evoke with a vague: 'I wonder what's become of him?โ And everything I do, everything I feel, everything I experience, will be just one less passer-by on the daily streets of some city or other.
Fernando PessoaTo 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 PessoaTo create, I destroyed myself; I made myself external to such a degree within myself that within myself I do not exist except in an external fashion. I am the living setting in which several actors make entrances, putting on several different plays.
Fernando PessoaA great emotion is too selfish ; it takes into itself all the blood of the spirit, and the congestion leaves the hands too cold to write. Three sorts of emotion produce great poetry - strong but quick emotions, seized upon for art as soon as they have passed, but not before they have passed ; strong and deep emotions in their remembrance along time after ; and false emotions, that is to say, emotions felt in the intellect. Not insincerity, but a translated sincerity, is the basis of all art.
Fernando Pessoa