Fernando Pessoa said this quote

“ I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing: it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think, I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice. ”

Famous Quotes of Fernando Pessoa

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There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.

~ Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Life Pain Ships

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 Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.

~ Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Life Reality Self Discovery Solitude

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.

~ Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Birth Death Intimacy Life Poetry Privacy

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.

~ Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa Contemplation Life Spiritual Thinking