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What Is Art But The Denial Of Life?
-Fernando Pessoa
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What Is Art But

Fernando Pessoa
...
What Is Art But The Denial Of Life?

Understanding the Quote: "what is art but the denial of life?..."

This quote by Fernando Pessoa reflects deeply on the theme of art. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Art, Denial, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Fernando Pessoa interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa is celebrated for insightful thoughts on art and denial. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Art
Denial
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To Know How To Think With Emotions And To Feel With Intellect.
Thinking
Emotion
Intellect
I Enjoy Wording. Words For Me Are Tangible Bodies, Visible Sirens, Incarnate Sensualities.
Sirens
Body
Tangible
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.
Dream
Tired
Sleep
There Is No Safe Standard To Tell Man From Animals.
Animal
Men
Safe
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.
Fall
Heart
Order
What Is A Disease Is Wishing With An Equal Intensity What Is Needed And What Is Desirable, And Suffer For Not Being Perfect As You Would Suffer For Not Having Bread. The Romantic Error Is This Wanting The Moon As If There Was A Way To Get It.
Moon
Errors
Perfect
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.
Symphony
Soul
Sound
...the Painful Intensity Of My Sensations, Even When They're Happy Ones; The Blissful Intensity Of My Sensations, Even When They're Sad.
Painful
Intensity
Book Of Disquiet
I Know Not What Tomorrow Will Bring.
Tomorrow
Last Words
Funny Famous Last Words
Life Is Good, But Wine Is Better.
Wine
Life Is Good
Life Is
I Carry My Awareness Of Defeat Like A Banner Of Victory.
Victory
Defeat
Awareness
That Is My Morality Or My Metaphysics Or Me Myself: A Passer-by In Everything, Even My Own Soul. I Belong To Nothing, I Desire Nothing, I Am Nothing Except An Abstract Centre Of Impersonal Sensations, A Sentient Mirror Fallen From The Wall But Still Turned To Reflect The Diversity Of The World.
Wall
Mirrors
Diversity
Whether Or Not They Exist We Are Slaves To Our Gods.
Slave
The World Belongs To Who Doesn't Feel. The Primary Condition To Be A Practical Man Is The Absence Of Sensitivity.
Men
World
Absence
Inch By Inch I Conquered The Inner Terrain I Was Born With. Bit By Bit I Reclaimed The Swamp In Which I'd Languished. I Gave Birth To My Infinite Being, But I Had To Wrench Myself Out Of Me With Forceps.
Swamps
Birth
Infinite
I Know, I Alone I Know, I Alone How Much It Hurts, This Heart With No Faith Nor Law Nor Melody Nor Thought. Only I, Only I And None Of This Can I Say Because Feeling Is Like The Sky - Seen, Nothing In It To See.
Hurt
Heart
Law
The Inventor Of The Mirror Poisoned The Human Heart.
Heart
Mirrors
Inventor
I'm Something That I Used To Be. I'm Never Where I Feel I Am, And If I Seek Myself, I Don't Know Who's Seeking Me. My Boredom With Everything Has Numbed Me. I Feel Banished From My Soul.
Numbness
Boredom
Soul
One Or Another Man, Liberated Or Cursed, Suddenly Sees-but Even This Man Sees Rarely-that All We Are Is What We Aren't, That We Fool Ourselves About What's True And Are Wrong About What We Conclude Is Right. And This Man, Who In A Flash Sees The Universe Naked, Creates A Philosophy Or Dreams Up A Religion; And The Philosophy Spreads And The Religion Propagates, And Those Who Believe In The Philosophy Begin To Wear It As A Suit They Don't See, And Those Who Believe In The Religion Put It On As A Mask They Soon Forget.
Dream
Philosophy
Philosophical
There's A Tiredness Of Abstract Inteligence, And It's The Most Horrible Of Tirednesses. It Doesn't Weight On You Like The Tiredness Of The Body, Nor Does It Worry You Like The Tiredness Of Knowledge And Emotion. It's A Weightiness Of The Conscience Of The World, An Inability Of The Soul To Breathe.
Worry
Soul
Inability
Give To Each Emotion A Personality, To Each State Of Mind A Soul.
Giving
Personality
Soul
I Believe That Saying A Thing Is To Keep Its Virtues And Take Away Its Terror.
Believe
I Believe
Virtue
Success Consists In Being Successful, Not In Having Potential For Success. Any Wide Piece Of Ground Is The Potential Site Of A Palace, But There's No Palace Till It's Built.
Successful
Reality
Pieces
Action Men Are The Unvoluntary Slaves Of Wise Men.
Wise
Men
Action
A 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.
Strong
Art
Selfish
Every Gesture Is A Revolutionary Act.
Gestures
Revolutionary
In Order To Understand, I Destroyed Myself.
Order
Self Destruction
Destruction
My Happiest Hours Are Those In Which I Think Nothing, Want Nothing, When I Do Not Even Dream, But Lose Myself In Some Spurious Vegetable Torpor, Moss Growing On The Surface Of Life. Without A Trace Of Bitterness I Savour My Absurd Awareness Of Being Nothing, A Mere Foretaste Of Death And Extinction.
Dream
Thinking
Vegetables
God Gave The Sea The Danger And The Abyss, But It Was In It That He Mirrored The Sky.
Mirrors
Sea
Sky
Sometimes, When I Wake Up At Night, I Feel Invisible Hands Weaving My Destiny.
Destiny
Night
Invisible Hand
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
Dream
Sleep
Awake
Walking On These Streets, Until The Night Falls, My Life Feels To Me Like The Life They Have. By Day They’re Full Of Meaningless Activity; By Night, They’re Full Of Meaningless Lack Of It. By Day I Am Nothing, And By Night I Am I. There Is No Difference Between Me And These Streets, Save They Being Streets And I A Soul, Which Perhaps Is Irrelevant When We Consider The Essence Of Things
Fall
Night
Essence
All I’ve Ever Done Is Dream. That, And Only That, Has Been The Meaning Of My Existence. The Only Thing I’ve Ever Really Cared About Is My Inner Life. My Greatest Griefs Faded To Nothing The Moment I Opened The Window Onto My Inner Self And Lost Myself In Watching. I Never Tried To Be Anything Other Than A Dreamer. I Never Paid Any Attention To People Who Told Me To Go Out And Live. I Belonged Always To Whatever Was Far From Me And To Whatever I Could Never Be. Anything That Was Not Mine, However Base, Always Seemed To Be Full Of Poetry. The Only Thing I Ever Loved Was Pure Nothingness.
Dream
Grief
Self
Destiny Gave Me Only Two Things: A Few Accounting Books And The Gift Of Dreaming.
Dream
Book
Destiny
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.
Love Is
Self
Ideas
First Watcher Why Do People Die? Second Watcher Perhaps Because They Don't Dream Enough.
Dream
People
Firsts
What Hells And Purgatories And Heavens I Have Inside Of Me! But Who Sees Me Do Anything That Disagrees With Life--me, So Calm And Peaceful?
Heaven
Peaceful
Calm
I Never Meant To Be But A Dreamer.
Dreamer
Meant To Be
Direct Experience Is The Evasion, Or Hiding Place Of Those Devoid Of Imagination.
Imagination
Hiding
Evasion
My Homeland Is The Portuguese Language.
Language
Portuguese
Homeland
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. From, The Book Of Disquiet
Dream
Children
Book
My Dreams Are A Stupid Refuge, Like An Umbrella Against A Thunderbolt.
Dream
Stupid
Umbrella
Every Man Who Deserves To Be Famous Knows It Is Not Worth The Trouble.
Men
Trouble
Fame
You Breathe Better When You're Rich.
Money
Rich
Breathe
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.
Who I Am
Long
Wake Up
I Am The Suburb Of A Non-existent Town, The Prolix Commentary On A Book Never Written. I Am Nobody, Nobody. I Am A Character In A Novel Which Remains To Be Written, And I Float, Aerial, Scattered Without Ever Having Been, Among The Dreams Of A Creature Who Did Not Know How To Finish Me Off.
Dream
Book
Character
I Don't Know What I Feel Or What I Want To Feel. I Don't Know What To Think Or What I Am.
Thinking
Want
Feels
To Know Nothing About Yourself Is To Live. To Know Yourself Badly Is To Think.
Thinking
Know Yourself
About Yourself
Everything Interests Me, But Nothing Holds Me.
Hold Me
Interest
Book Of Disquiet
I Walk Along A Street And See In The Faces Of The Passersby Not The Expression They Really Have But The Expression They Would Have For Me If They Knew About My Life And How I Am, If I Carried, Transparent In My Gestures And My Face, The Ridiculous, Timid Abnormality Of My Soul.
Expression
Soul
Gestures
Ah, It's My Longing For Whom I Might Have Been That Distracts And Torments Me!
Might
Longing
Book Of Disquiet
I Never Cared About Whatever Tragic Event Happened In China. It's Faraway Decoration, Even If In Blood And Plague.
Blood
Events
China
For I Am The Size Of What I See / Not My Height's Size.
Height
Size
The Slope Takes You To The Windmill, But Effort Takes You Nowhere.
Effort
Windmills
Slopes
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.
Flower
Sadness
Thinking
My Boredom With Everything Has Numbed Me.
Boredom
I Don't Believe In The Landscape.
Believe
Landscape
Belief
I Know Nothing And My Heart Aches
Heart
Ache
Knows
I've Never Done Anything But Dream. This, And This Alone, Has Been The Meaning Of My Life. My Only Real Concern Has Been My Inner Life.
Dream
Real
Done
I Asked For Very Little From Life, And Even This Little Was Denied Me. A Nearby Field, A Ray Of Sunlight, A Little Bit Of Calm Along With A Bit Of Bread, Not To Feel Oppressed By The Knowledge That I Exist, Not To Demand Anything From Others, And Not To Have Others Demand Anything From Me - This Was Denied Me, Like The Spare Change We Might Deny A Beggar Not Because We're Mean-hearted But Because We Don't Feel Like Unbuttoning Our Coat.
Mean
Rays
Demand
To Need To Dominate Others Is To Need Others. The Commander Is Dependent.
Needs
Dependent
Commanders
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!
Unique
People
Lasts
God Wills, Man Dreams, The Work Is Born.
Dream
Men
Born
I’m Losing My Taste For Everything, Including Even My Taste For Finding Everything Tasteless.
Taste
Losing
Findings
The Unnatural And The Strange Have A Perfume Of Their Own
Strange
Perfume
Unnatural
We Live By Action—by Acting On Desire. Those Of Us Who Don't Know How To Want—whether Geniuses Or Beggars—are Related By Impotence.
Desire
Acting
Genius
Lord, May The Pain Be Ours, And The Weakness That It Brings, But At Least Give Us The Strength, Of Not Showing It To Anyone!
Pain
Giving
Weakness
I Never Had Anyone I Could Call “master”. No Christ Died For Me. No Buddha Showed Me The Right Path. In The Depths Of My Dreams No Apollo Or Athena Appeared To Me To Enlighten My Soul
Dream
Soul
Depth
I Realize That, While Often Happy And Often Cheerful, I Am Always Sad.
Cheerful
Realizing
And Leaning Out The Window, Enjoying The Day Above The Varying Volume Of The Entire City, Only One Thought Swells My Soul – The Intimate Will To Die, To Finish, Not To See More Light Over Any City, Not To Think, Not To Feel, To Leave Behind Like Wrapping Paper The Course Of The Sun And The Days, To Rid Myself, At The Edge Of The Grand Bed, As Of A Heavy Suit, Of The Involuntary Effort To Be.
Thinking
Light
Cities
The Startling Reality Of Things Is My Discovery Every Single Day.
Reality
Discovery
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.
Vanity
Profound
Effort
I Never Was But An Isolated Bon Vivant, Which Is Absurd; Or A Mystic Bon Vivant, Which Is An Impossible Thing.
Impossible Things
Absurd
Mystic
I Never Go To Where's A Risk. I'm Frightened Of Dangers Down To Boredom.
Fear
Boredom
Risk
I'm Going To End A Life That I Thought Could Contain Every Kind Of Greatness But That In Fact Consisted Only Of My Incapacity To Really Want To Be Great. Whenever I Arrived At A Certainty, I Remembered That Those With The Greatest Certainties Are Lunatics.
Greatness
Want
Facts
To Think Is To Destroy.
Thinking
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.
Art
Average
Ends
I Pass Times, I Pass Silences, Formless Worlds Pass Me By.
Journey
Silence
World
Nobody Appropriates Novelties As Readily As The Portuguese.
Novelty
Portuguese
I Will Be What I Want. But I Will Have To Want What I'll Be. Success Is In Having Success, Not Conditions For Success.
Success
Want
Conditions
I Think Of Life As An Inn Where I Have To Stay Until The Abyss Coach Arrives. I Don't Know Where It Will Take Me, For I Know Nothing.
Thinking
Inns
Abyss
I Read And Am Liberated. I Acquire Objectivity. I Cease Being Myself And So Scattered. And What I Read, Instead Of Being Like A Nearly Invisible Suit That Sometimes Oppresses Me, Is The External World’s Tremendous And Remarkable Clarity, The Sun That Sees Everyone, The Moon That Splotches The Still Earth With Shadows, The Wide Expanses That End In The Sea, The Blackly Solid Trees Whose Tops Greenly Wave, The Steady Peace Of Ponds On Farms, The Terraced Slopes With Their Paths Overgrown By Grape-vines.
Moon
Objectivity
Sea
Ser Compreendido é Prostituir-se.
As We Wash Our Body So We Should Wash Destiny, Change Life As We Change Clothes.
Life Changing
Destiny
Clothes
Should I Be What I Think? But I Think About Being So Many Things!
Thinking
Book Of Disquiet
Through An Experience That Simultaneously Involved My Sensibility And Intelligence, I Realized Early On That The Imaginative Life, However Morbid It Might Seem, Is The One That Suits Temperaments Like Mine. The Fictions Of My Imagination (as It Later Developed) May Weary Me, But They Don't Hurt Or Humiliate. Impossible Lovers Can't Cheat On Us, Or Smile At Us Falsely, Or Be Calculating In Their Caresses. They Never Forsake Us, And They Don't Die Or Disappear. --the Book Of Disquiet
Hurt
Book
Imagination
I Crave Time In All Its Duration, And I Want To Be Myself Unconditionally.
Want
Duration
Crave
Being A Retired Major Looks Like An Ideal Thing To Me. What A Pity You Couldn't Eternally Have Been Just A Retired Major.
Looks
Pity
Retired
The Abstract Intelligence Produces A Fatigue That's The Worst Of All Fatigues. It Doesn't Weigh On Us Like Bodily Fatigue, Nor Disconcert Like The Fatigue Of Emotional Experience. It's The Weight Of Our Consciousness Of The World, A Shortness Of Breath In Our Soul.
Emotional
Soul
World
The House Clock, Place Certain There At The Bottom Of Things, Strikes The Half Hour Dry And Null. All Is So Much, All Is So Deep, All Is So Dark And Cold!
Dark
House
Null
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.
Lightning
Today
Intimate
Yes, Talking To People Makes Me Sleepy.
Talking
People
Sleepy
And I, Who Timidly Hate Life, Fear Death With Fascination. I Fear This Nothingness That Could Be Something Else, And I Fear It As Nothing And As Something Else Simultaneously, As If Gross Horror And Non-existence Could Coincide There, As If My Coffin Could Entrap The Eternal Breathing Of A Bodily Soul, As If Immortality Could Be Tormented By Confinement. The Idea Of Hell, Which Only A Satanic Soul Could Have Invented Seems To Me To Have Derived From This Sort Of Confusion - A Mixture Of Two Different Fears That Contradict And Contaminate Each Other.
Hate
Breathing
Ideas
Liberty Is The Possibility Of Isolation.
Liberty
Isolation
Possibility
I Asked For Very Little From Life, And Even This Little Was Denied Me.
Littles
Denied
Literature Is The Most Agreeable Way Of Ignoring Life.
Life
Art
Solitude
What Has Happened To Us Has Happened To Everyone Or Only To Us; If To Everyone, Then It's No Novelty, And If Only To Us, Then It Won't Be Understood.
Book
Novelty
Understood
Ah, Who Will Save Me From Existing? It's Neither Death Nor Life That I Want.
Want
Save Me
Solitude Desolates Me; Company Oppresses Me.
Solitude
Company
Giving Importance To What We Think Because We Thought It, Taking Our Own Selves Not Only (to Quote The Greek Philosopher) As The Measure Of All Things But As Their Norm Or Standard, We Create In Ourselves, If Not An Interpretation, At Least A Criticism Of The Universe, Which We Don't Even Know And Therefore Cannot Criticize. The Giddiest, Most Weak-minded Of Us Then Promote That Criticism To An Interpretation That's Superimposed, Like A Hallucination; Induced Rather Than Deduced. It's A Hallucination In The Strict Sense, Being An Illusion Based On Something Only Dimly Seen.
Thinking
Self
Giving
We May Know That The Work We Continue To Put Off Doing Will Be Bad. Worse, However, Is The Work We Never Do. A Work That’s Finished Is At Least Finished. It May Be Poor, But It Exists, Like The Miserable Plant In The Lone Flowerpot Of My Neighbour Who’s Crippled. That Plant Is Her Happiness, And Sometimes It’s Even Mine. What I Write, Bad As It Is, May Provide Some Hurt Or Sad Soul A Few Moments Of Distraction From Something Worse. That’s Enough For Me, Or It Isn’t Enough, But It Serves Some Purpose, And So It Is With All Of Life.
Hurt
Writing
Soul
Pg.9 "in My Heart There's A Peaceful Anguish, And My Calm Is Made Of Resignation.
Heart
Peaceful
Calm
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.
Soul
Lilies
Chrysanthemums
To Say! To Know How To Say! To Know How To Exist Via The Written Voice And The Intellectual Image! This Is All That Matters In Life; The Rest Is Men And Women, Imagined Loves And Factitious Vanities, The Wiles Of Our Digestion And Forgetfulness, People Squirming — Like Worms When A Rock Is Lifted — Under The Huge Abstract Boulder Of The Meaningless Blue Sky.
Love
Men
Vanity
The Beauty Of A Naked Body Is Felt Only By The Dressed Races.
Race
Naked
Body
My Hapless Peers With Their Lofty Dreams--how I Envy And Despise Them! I'm With The Others, The Even More Hapless, Who Have No-one But Themselves To Whom They Can Tell Their Dreams And Show What Would Be Verses If They Wrote Them. I'm With Those Poor Slobs Who Have No Books To Show, Who Have No Literature Beside Their Own Soul, And Who Are Suffocating To Death Due To The Fact That They Exist Without Having Taken That Mysterious, Transcendental Exam That Makes One Eligible To Live.
Dream
Book
Taken
The Supreme Empire Is That Of The Emperor Who Renounces All Normal Life, That Of Other Men, And In Who The Care Of Supremacy Doesn't Weigh Like A Load Of Jewels.
Men
Jewels
Empires
Faithful To The Word Given And The Idea Had.
Ideas
Faithful
Given
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
Thinking
Self
People
The Idea Of Any Social Obligation ... Just The Idea Of It Embarasses My Thoughts For A Day, And Sometimes It's Since The Day Before That I Worry, And Don't Sleep Well, And The Real Affair, When It Happens, Is Absolutely Insignificant And Justifies Nothing; And The Case Repeats Itself And I Never Learn To Learn.
Real
Sleep
Ideas
Attention To Detail And A Perfectionist Instinct, Far From Stimulating Action, Are Character Qualities That Lead To Renunciation. Better To Dream Than To Be.
Dream
Character
Quality
Literature Exists Because The World Isn't Enough.
Literature
World
Enough
There Are Ships Sailing To Many Ports, But Not A Single One Goes Where Life Is Not Painful.
Pain
Sailing
Ships
To Feel Today What One Felt Yesterday Isn't To Feel - It's To Remember Today What Was Felt Yesterday, To Be Today's Living Corpse Of What Yesterday Was Lived And Lost.
Yesterday
Today
Remember
To 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.
Fashion
Play
Degrees
I Am Tired Of Myself In Every Way. All Things, Deep Down To The Secret Of Their Roots, Are Stained By The Color Of My Weariness.
Tired
Color
Roots
The Principle Tragedy Of My Life Is, Like All Tragedies, An Irony Of Destiny. I Reject Real Life As If It Were A Condemnation; I Reject Dreams As If They Were An Ignoble Liberation. [...]after The End Of The Stars Uselessly Whitened In The Morning Sky And The Breeze Became Less Cold In The Barely Orange Tinged In The Yellow Of The Light On The Scattered Low Clouds, I, Who Hadn't Slept, Could Finally, Slowly Raise My Body, Exhausted From Nothing From The Bed From Which I Had Thought The Universe.
Dream
Morning
Stars
Time, Which Grays Hair And Wrinkles Faces, Also Withers Violent Affections, And Much More Quickly.
Wrinkles
Hair
Faces
If After I Die, People Want To Write My Biography, There Is Nothing Simpler. They Only Need Two Dates: The Date Of My Birth And The Date Of My Death. Between One And Another, Every Day Is Mine.
Writing
Two
People
Everything Is Absurd.
Absurd
My Curiosity Sister Of Larks.
Curiosity
Larks
Have You Ever Considered, Beloved Other, How Invisible We Are To Each Other? We Look At Each Other Without Seeing. We Listen To Each Other And Hear Only A Voice Inside Out Self. The Words Of Others Are Mistakes Of Our Hearing, Shipwrecks Of Our Understanding. How Confidently We Believe Our Meanings Of Other People's Words.
Mistake
Believe
Self
To Have Opinions Is To Sell Out To Youself. To Have No Opinions Is To Exist. To Have Every Opinion Is To Be A Poet.
Opinion
Poet
Book Of Disquiet
Stones In The Road? I Save Every Single One, And One Day I'll Build A Castle.
One Day
Castles
Stones
I Was A Poet Animated By Philosophy, Not A Philosopher With Poetic Faculties.
Philosophy
Philosopher
Poetic
Smell Is A Strange Sight. It Evokes Sentimental Landscapes Through A Sudden Sketching Of The Subconscious.
Sight
Smell
Sketching
I Feel Closer Ties And More Intimate Bonds With Certain Characters In Books, With Certain Images I’ve Seen In Engravings, Than With Many Supposedly Real People With The Metaphysical Absurdity Known As ‘flesh And Blood’. In Fact, ‘flesh And Blood’ Describes Them Very Well: They Resemble Cuts Of Meat Laid Out On The Butcher’s Marble Slab, Dead Creatures Bleeding As Though Still Alive.
Real
Book
Character
In The Ordinary Jumble Of My Literary Drawer, I Sometimes Find Texts I Wrote Ten, Fifteen, Or Even More Years Ago. And Many Of Them Seem To Me Written By A Stranger: I Simply Do Not Recognize Myself In Them. There Was A Person Who Wrote Them, And It Was I. I Experienced Them, But It Was In Another Life, From Which I Just Woke Up, As If From Someone Else's Dream.
Dream
Writing
Years
Silence Emerges From The Sound Of Rain And Spreads In A Crescendo Of Gray Monotony Over The Narrow Street I Contemplate. I’m Sleeping While Awake, Standing By The Window, Leaning Against It As Against Everything. I Search In Myself For The Sensations I Feel Before These Falling Threads Of Darkly Luminous Water That Stand Out From The Grimy Building Facades And Especially From The Open Windows. And I Don’t Know What I Feel Or What I Want To Feel. I Don’t Know What To Think Or Where I Am.
Rain
Fall
Sleep
My Soul's The Present Shadow Of A Presence Gone.
Soul
Shadow
Gone
It's In An Inland Sea That The River Of My Life Ended.
Sea
Rivers
Let Us Sculpt In Hopeless Silence All Our Dreams Of Speaking.
Dream
Silence
Hopeless
I Feel As If I'm Always On The Verge Of Waking Up.
Waking
Wake Up
Feels
To Love Is To Tire Of Being Alone; It Is Therefore A Cowardice, A Betrayal Of Ourselves. (it Is Exceedingly Important That We Not Love.)
Betrayal
Love Is
Important
If A Man Can Only Write Well When Drunk, I'll Tell Him: Get Drunk. And If He Tells Me That His Liver Suffers With It, I'll Answer: What's Your Liver? It's A Dead Thing That Lives As Long As You Live, And The Poems You'll Write Will Live Without A As Long As.
Writing
Men
Long
I Sometimes Think, With A Sad Delight, That If One Day, In A Future I No Longer Belong To, These Sentences, That I Write, Last With Praise, I Will At Last Have The People Who Understand Me, Those Mine, The True Family To Be Born In And Be Loved... I Will Only Be Understood In Effigy, When Affection No Longer Repays The Dead The Unaffection That Was, When Living.
Writing
Thinking
People
To Narrate Is To Create, For Living Is Just Being Lived.
Just Being
What's Most Worthless About Dreams Is That Everybody Has Them.
Dream
Worthless
Pg 9, "the Consciousness Of Life's Unconsciousness Is The Oldest Tax Levied On The Intelligence.
Consciousness
Taxes
Unconsciousness
Humanitarianism Is Rude.
Rude
Humanitarianism
Who Am I To Myself? Just A Feeling Of Mine.
Ego
Feelings
Mines
I Wasn’t Meant For Reality, But Life Came And Found Me.
Reality
Found
Book Of Disquiet
Whenever Someone Tells Me He Dreamed, I Wonder If He Realizes That He Has Never Done Anything But Dream.
Dream
Done
Wonder
To Live Strikes Me As A Metaphysical Mistake Of Matter, A Dereliction Of Inaction.
Mistake
Matter
Metaphysical
The Chill Of What I Won't Feel Gnaws At My Present Heart.
Heart
Chill
Feels
All Pleasure Is A Vice, For Seeking Pleasure Is What Everybody Does In Life, And The Only Dark Vice Is Doing What Everybody Does.
Dark
Vices
Doe
Life Is An Experimental Journey Undertaken Involuntarily. It Is A Journey Of The Spirit Through The Material World And, Since It Is The Spirit That Travels, It Is The Spirit That Is Experienced. That Is Why There Exist Contemplative Souls Who Have Lived More Intensely, More Widely, More Tumultuously Than Others Who Have Lived Their Lives Purely Externally. The End Result Is What Matters. What One Felt Was What One Experienced. One Retires To Bed As Wearily From Having Dreamed As From Having Done Hard Physical Labor. One Never Lives So Intensely As When One Has Been Thinking Hard.
Thinking
Journey
What Matters
Let's Develop Theories, Patiently And Honestly Thinking Them Out, In Order To Promptly Act Against Them – Acting And Justifying Our Actions With New Theories That Condemn Them. Let's Cut A Path In Life And Then Go Immediately Against That Path. Let's Adopt All The Poses And Gestures Of Something We Aren't And Don't Even Wish To Be, And Don't Even Wish To Taken For Being.
Taken
Cutting
Thinking
Why Is Art Beautiful? Because It's Useless. Why Is Life Ugly? Because It's All Ends And Purposes And Intentions.
Beautiful
Art
Purpose
There's No Greater Tragedy Than An Equal Intensity, In The Same Soul Or The Same Man, Of The Intellectual Sentiment And The Moral Sentiment. For A Man To Be Utterly And Absolutely Moral, He Has To Be A Bit Stupid. For A Man To Be Absolutely Intellectual, He Has To Be A Bit Immoral.
Stupid
Men
Soul
To Be Great, Be Whole; Exclude Nothing. Be Whole In Everything.
Whole
In Today's Life, The World Belongs Only To The Stupid, The Insensitive And The Agitated. The Right To Live And Triumph Is Now Conquered Almost By The Same Means By Which You Conquer Internment In An Asylum: The Inability To Think, Amorality And Hiperexcitation.
Stupid
Mean
Thinking
Every Day Things Happen In The World That Cannot Be Explained By Any Law Of Things We Know. Every Day They're Mentioned And Forgotten, And The Same Mystery That Brought Them Takes Them Away, Transforming Their Secret Into Oblivion. Such Is The Law By Which Things That Can't Be Explained Must Be Forgotten. The Visible World Goes On As Usual In The Broad Daylight. Otherness Watches Us From The Shadows.
Law
Secret
Shadow
But Do We Really Live? To Live Without Knowing What Life Is - Is That Living?
Knowing
Life Is
Book Of Disquiet
Since I Wasn't Able To Leave A Succession Of Beautiful Lies, I Want To Leave The Smidgen Of Truth That The Falsehood Of Everything Lets Us Suppose We Can Tell.
Beautiful
Lying
Want
There’s Enough Metaphysics In Not Thinking About Anything.
Thinking
Enough
Metaphysics
Every Spoken Word Double-crosses Us. The Written Word Is The Only Tolerable Form Of Communication, As It Isn't A Stone In A Bridge Between Souls But A Ray Of Light Between Stars.
Stars
Communication
Philosophical
Let's Absurdify Life, From East To West. Let Us Play Hide-and-seek With Our Consciousness Of Living.
Play
East
West
The Essence Of What I Desire Is Simply This: To Sleep Away Life.
Sleep
Essence
Desire
Better To Dream Than To Be.
Dream
I Suffer From Life And From Other People. I Can’t Look At Reality Face To Face. Even The Sun Discourages And Depresses Me. Only At Night And All Alone, Withdrawn, Forgotten And Lost, With No Connection To Anything Real Or Useful — Only Then Do I Find Myself And Feel Comforted.
Life
Depressing
Real
If I Write What I Feel, It's To Reduce The Fever Of Feeling. What I Confess Is Unimportant, Because Everything Is Unimportant.
Writing
Feelings
Fever
My Joy Is As Painful As My Pain.
Pain
Joy
Painful
Tomorrow I Too – This Feeling And Thinking Soul, The Universe I Am To Myself – 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?” 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.
Thinking
Cities
Soul
A Being Who, As I Grew Older, Lost Imagination, Emotion, A Type Of Intelligence, A Way Of Feeling Things - All That Which, While It Made Me Sorry, Did Not Horrify Me. But What Am I Experiencing When I Read Myself As If I Were Someone Else? On Which Bank Am I Standing If I See Myself In The Depths?
Sorry
Imagination
Feelings
To Choose Ways Of Not Acting Was Ever The Concern And Scruple Of My Life.
Acting
Way
Scruples
Could It Think, The Heart Would Stop Beating.
Heart
Thinking
Emotion
There Are No Norms. All People Are Exceptions To A Rule That Doesn’t Exist.
People
Norm
Exception
Everything Stated Or Expressed By Man Is A Note In The Margin Of A Completely Erased Text. From What's In The Note We Can Extract The Gist Of What Must Have Been In The Text, But There's Always A Doubt, And The Possible Meanings Are Many.
Men
Doubt
Gist
The Superiority Of The Dreamer Is That Dreaming Is Much More Practical Than Living, And That The Dreamer Extracts From Life A Much Vaster And Varied Pleasure Than The Action Man. In Better And More Direct Words, The Dreamer Is The Real Action Man.
Dream
Real
Men
I'm Sick Of Everything, And Of The Everythingness Of Everything.
Sick
Book Of Disquiet
I Come Closer To My Desk As To A Bulwark Against Life.
Desks
There Is A Time When It Is Necessary To Abandon The Used Clothes, Which Already Have The Shape Of Our Body And To Forget Our Paths, Which Takes Us Always To The Same Places. This Is The Time To Cross The River: And If We Don't Dare To Do It, We Will Have Stayed, Forever Beneath Ourselves
Time
Rivers
Clothes
Again I See You, But Me I Don't See!, The Magical Mirror In Which I Saw Myself Has Been Broken, And Only A Piece Of Me I See In Each Fatal Fragment - Only A Piece Of You And Me!
Mirrors
Broken
Pieces
Having Touched Christ's Feet Is Not An Excuse For Punctuation Mistakes.
Mistake
Feet
Punctuation
There's Something Vile (and All The More Vile Because Ridiculous) In The Tendency Of Feeble Men To Make Universal Tragedies Out Of The Sad Comedies Of Their Private Woes.
Men
Tragedy
Woe
I've Always Been An Ironic Dreamer, Unfaithful To My Inner Promises. Like A Complete Outsider, A Casual Observer Of Whom I Thought I Was, I've Always Enjoyed Watching My Daydreams Go Down In Defeat. I Was Never Convinced Of What I Believed In. I Filled My Hands With Sand, Called It Gold, And Opened Them Up To Let It Slide Through. Words Were My Only Truth. When The Right Words Were Said, All Was Done; The Rest Was The Sand That Had Always Been.
Hands
Dreamer
Ironic
I Sometimes Think That I Enjoy Suffering. But The Truth Is I Would Prefer Something Else.
Thinking
Suffering
Sometimes
I Realize That I Was All Error And Deviation, That I Never Lived, That I Existed Only In So Far As I Filled Time With Consciousness And Thought.
Errors
Realizing
Consciousness
To Have Defined And Sure Opinions, Fixed And Known Instincts, Passions And Character - All That Is The Horror Of Turning Our Soul Into A Fact, Materialize It And Make It External.
Passion
Character
Soul
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.
Perfect
Simplicity
Way
Everything Is Theater.
Theater
Once We're Able To See This World As An Illusion And A Phantasm, Then We Can See Everything That Happens To Us As A Dream, As Something That Pretended To Exist While We Were Sleeping. And We Will Become Subtly And Profoundly Indifferent Towards All Of Life's Setbacks And Calamities. Those Who Die Turned A Corner, Which Is Why We've Stopped Seeing Them; Those Who Suffer Pass Before Us Like A Nightmare, If We Feel, Or Like An Unpleasant Daydream, If We Think. And Even Our Own Suffering Won't Be More Than This Nothingness.
Dream
Sleep
Thinking
The Sea With An End Can Be Greek Or Roman: The Endless Sea Is Portuguese.
Sea
Greek
Portuguese
Life Is Whatever We Conceive It To Be.
Life Is
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.
Crowds
Far Away
All Alone
Changing From The Ghosts Of Faith To The Spectres Of Reason Is Just Changing Cells.
Change
Cells
Ghost
And Let Our Despite Go To Those Who Work And Fight And Our Hate To Those Who Hope And Trust.
Hate
Fighting
Despite
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.
Writing
Sick
Drink
I'm The Empty Stage Where Various Actors Act Out Various Plays.
Play
Actors
Empty
I'm A Man For Whom The Outside World Is An Inner Reality.
Reality
Men
World
Look, There's No Metaphysics On Earth But Chocolates.
Love
Halloween
Food
Nostalgia! I Feel It Even For Someone Who Meant Nothing To Me, Out Of Anxiety For The Flight Of Time And A Sickness Bred Of The Mystery Of Life. If One Of The Faces I Pass Daily On The Streets Disappears, I Feel Sad; Yet They Meant Nothing To Me, Other Than Being A Symbol Of All Life.
Life
Time
Sadness
We Worship Perfection Because We Can't Have It; If We Had It, We Would Reject It. Perfection Is Inhuman, Because Humanity Is Imperfect.
Perfection
Humanity
Imperfect
The Gods Sell When They Give. Glory Is Paid For With Disgrace. Poor Are The Happy, For They Are Just What Passes.
Giving
Glory
Poor
Fraternity Has Subtleties.
Fraternity
Subtlety
I Belong To A Generation - Assuming That This Generation Includes Others Besides Me - That Lost Its Faith In The Gods Of The Old Religions As Well As In The Gods Of Modern Nonreligions. I Reject Jehova As I Reject Humanity.
Humanity
This Generation
Generations
Everyone Has His Vanity, And Each One's Vanity Is His Forgetting That There Are Others With An Equal Soul.
Vanity
Soul
Forget
Should You Ask Me If I'm Happy, I'll Answer That I'm Not.
Answers
Should
Ask Me
Let's Buy Books So As Not To Read Them; Let's Go To Concerts Without Caring To Hear The Music Or See Who's There; Let's Take Long Walks Because We're Sick Of Walking; And Let's Spend Whole Days In The Country, Just Because It Bores Us.
Country
Book
Caring
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