"The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!"
"Your poems are of interest to mankind; your liver isn't. Drink till you write well and feel sick. Bless your poems and be damned to you."
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Source: The Book of Disquiet. Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 229, 2006.
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"The feelings that hurt most, the emotions 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."
"Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are."
"My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony."
"The slope takes you to the windmill, but effort takes you nowhere."
"We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love."