The Book Of Disquiet By Fernando Pessoa

The sentences taken from The Book of Disquiet are fragments of a real masterpiece. This text is considered one of the best prose books by Fernando Pessoa. It took the author 22 years to complete it, selecting a series of careful reflections.

In The Book of Disquiet all daily topics are addressed. The text also collects fragments of Pessoa’s diary, as well as aphorisms and brief reflections. The phrases we have chosen are the best artistic expression of the great Portuguese poet.

What appears to be the definitive edition of the book dates back to 2010. Prior to this date, other editions were circulating that included phrases from The Book of Disquiet that did not really belong to Fernando Pessoa. This is why the text has been purified. Here are some of the most beautiful phrases in this book:

Phrases taken from Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet

Go blind …

Many sentences from The Book of Disquiet emphasize the absurdity of life and existence. The following perfectly reflects Pessoa’s thinking: “I am like someone who is looking haphazardly, not knowing where an object has been hidden that they have not told him what it is. Let’s play hide and seek with anyone ”.

Pessoa argues that we live by going around nothing. We have no idea what our purpose is and even less how to achieve it. We avoid others, who in turn are in the same condition as us. According to the poet, this is the game of life.

The ghosts

A beautiful and profound reflection by Fernando Pessoa says: “Passing from the ghosts of faith to the ghosts of reason is only a change of cell”. With this statement, the poet distances himself from the two great pillars of Western thought: faith and reason.

As you know, the realm of thought has been based on faith and reason for centuries. Faith that denies reason and reason that denies faith. Pessoa defines them as imaginary, but also as two prisons. Both limit the perspective and confine the thought to an exclusive territory.

Everything is imperfect

Perfection is one of the most abstract and idealistic concepts that exist. A mental product, which does not correspond to any reality. To be complete, the human being yearns for perfection, but at the same time makes it impossible due to his deep and eternal inner discomfort.

One of the sentences of The Book of Disquiet states: “Everything is imperfect, there is no sunset so beautiful that it cannot be more, or a light breeze that invites sleep that cannot favor an even more peaceful sleep”. The author underlines how the value that man attributes to reality is never enough.

The beauty of uselessness

Here is another beautiful reflection of Pessoa: “Why is art beautiful? Because it is useless. Why is life bad? Because it’s all ends and purposes and intentions. All its paths lead from one point to another point. Maybe there was a road in a place where no one goes! ”.

Art, according to Pessoa, lacks practical sense. It has value for what it is, not for its usefulness. Nobody needs Diego Velázquez’s paintings to live, but those who contemplate them enrich their existence. The Earth continues to turn with or without the Eiffel Tower, but the planet becomes wonderful because the tower is there.

In everyday life the opposite happens. Things, and even people, acquire value for the benefit they offer or stop offering. All of us human beings devote ourselves only to things that represent some usefulness. Under these conditions, in life we ​​renounce greatness and beauty. Here is what Pessoa wants to express with his words.

The orphan of fortune

Much of The Book of Disquiet is the autobiography of Fernando Pessoa, despite having signed it under the pseudonym of Bernardo Soares. In the text there are moving confessions that speak of loneliness and abandonment.

One of the most intimate passages reads: “I have always wanted to please others. It always hurt me that they were indifferent to me. Orphan of Fortune, I have, like all orphans, the need to be the object of someone’s affection ”.

Throughout the book Pessoa defines himself as a failure who finds no meaning in his existence. He is an orphan of fortune because he has also lost the desire to be happy. However, he declares that love can be the cure that makes up for lack of success and the denial of a happy destiny.

Fernando Pessoa is one of the most important poets of all time. The Book of Disquiet reveals the complexity of his feelings and the wit of his reflections. Each sentence contains a short poem ready to be discovered by the mind of a sensitive reader.