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The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”

“My past is everything I failed to be.”

“My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren't attached.”

“I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”

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

“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.”

“I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect”

“I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.”

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 Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.”

“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.”

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Book Keywords:

restlessness, dna, past, reading, reality, symphony, time, ships, self-discovery, failure, self, life, pain, soul, literature, noise, solitude

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