Martty Koppelas > Martty's Quotes

“But I am not perfect in my way of putting things
Because I lack the divine simplicity
Of being only what I appear to be.”
― Fernando Pessoa, Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“To be understood is to prostitute oneself”
― Fernando Pessoa, Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“What can I expect from myself? My sensation in all their horrible acuity, and a profound awareness of feeling. A sharp mind that only destroys me, and an unusual capacity for dreaming to keep me entertained. A dead will and a reflection that cradles it, like a living child.”
― Fernando Pessoa , The Book of Disquiet

“And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Without madness what is man
But a wholesome beast,
Postponed corpse that begets?”
― Fernando Pessoa, Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Writing is like paying myself a formal visit…”
― Fernando Pessoa

“I know nothing and my heart aches”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“…to know how to think with emotions and to feel with intellect…”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“The feelings that hurt most, the motions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“To act—that is true wisdom. I can be what I want to be, but I have to want whatever it is. Success consists in being successful, not in having the potential for success.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Each of us is several, is many,is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways. Livro Do Desassossego”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquietude

“FIRST WATCHER Why do people die?
SECOND WATCHER Perhaps because they don't dream enough...”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa

“For a long time now I haven't existed. I'm utterly calm. No one distinguishes me from who I am. I just felt myself breath as if I'd done something new, or done it late. I'm beginning to be conscious of being conscious. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up to myself and resume the course of my existence. I don't know if that will make more happy or less. I don't know anything.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I crave time in all its duration, and I
want to be myself unconditionally.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Sometimes, when I wake up at night, I feel invisible hands weaving my destiny.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“In me all affections take place on the surface, but sincerely. I've always been an actor, and in earnest. Whenever I've loved, I've pretended to love, pretending it even to myself.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet