Quotes From The Book Of Unrest By Fernando Pessoa
These quotes from the Book of Unrest are true works of art. This fantastic text is considered Fernando Pessoa’s best prose book and was published after his death. This book contains some fragments of his diary, brief reflections and proverbs.
The last edition of this book was published in Portuguese in 2010. Other versions were published before that, but they included the writings of others. The editors of the 2010 edition cleaned this all up.
Below we share some of the most beautiful quotes from this book.
Random search
The book of unrest emphasizes that life is meaningless and its existence is absurd. This quote reflects it perfectly: “I am like someone who searches at random, unaware of where it is buried that no one has told what is. We play hide and seek with no one. ”
Pessoa writes that our human lives are about nothing. We do not understand our purpose, much less how to achieve it. We avoid other people who are in the same condition. For the poet, this is the game of life.
Ghosts
This is one of Pessoa’s most profound and beautiful quotes: “Moving from the ghosts of faith to the ghosts of reason is the same as moving from one cell to another.” With these simple words, the poet takes on the two great concepts of Western thinking: faith and reason.
As you know, these two worldviews have been fighting each other for centuries. Faith negates reason and reason negates faith. Pessoa defines them both as imaginary, but also as prison cells. Both limit your perspective and the way you think.
Nothing is perfect
Perfection is one of the most abstract and idealistic concepts in existence. It is purely a product of the mind and does not correspond to any reality. To make matters worse, people will have perfection, but will never get it because nothing satisfies them.
One of the quotes from the book of Unrest says: “But nothing is perfect: there is no sunset that is so beautiful that it could not be more beautiful, the cooling breeze does not exist that is so sleep-depriving that it can not put us to an even gentler sleep. ” In this quote, Fernando Pessoa emphasizes that people are never satisfied.
The beauty of useless things
“Why is art beautiful? Because it’s useless. Why is life ugly? Because it is full of goals and projects and intentions. All paths of life lead from one point to another. Why can there not be a way that begins in a place that no one leaves, and that ends in a place that no one reaches? ”
Art has no practical significance. It is valuable for what it is, not for its usability. No one needs Las Meninas to live their lives, but looking at the painting makes them reflect. Earth will continue to orbit the Eiffel Tower or not, but the planet is more beautiful because it stands.
The opposite happens in ordinary life. Things and even people are only valuable if they offer good things. People seek only what is useful. Under these conditions, life ceases to be magnificent and unique. That is what Pessoa asks us to reflect on in this quote.
The foundling of fate
The Book of Unrest is an autobiography by Fernando Pessoa and contains many touching confessions about loneliness and neglect.
One of these intimate passages says: “I have always wanted to please, and the indifference of others has always hurt me. As a child of fate, I, like all orphans, have always been hungry for the devotion of others. ”
Throughout the book, Pessoa defines himself as a failure that finds no meaning. He is the foundling of fate because he himself has lost his desire to be happy.
Fernando Pessoa was one of the most important poets of all time. The book of unrest shows us the complexity of his feelings and the sharpness of his reflections. Each sentence is a poem waiting for a sensitive reader as you will discover it.
