Poetry Quote by Fernando Pessoa — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“A tree's shade is worth more than the knowledge of truth, my sons, for a tree's shade is true while it lasts, and the knowledge of truth is false in its very truth. The leaves' greenness is worth more, for a right understanding, than a great thought, for the leaves, greenness is something you can show others, but you can never show them a great thought. We are born without knowing how to talk and we die without having known how to express ourselves. Our life runs its course between the silence of one who cannot speak and the silence of one who wasn't understood, and around it hovers — like a bee where there are no flowers — a useless, inscrutable destiny.”

“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 me to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.”

“Ah, the freshness in the face of leaving a task undone!”

“To be great, be whole;”

“We, all who live, have”

“For darkness restores what light cannot repair.”

“My hair smells of oceanic wind”

“They mutilate they torment each other”

“How does a poet know when a poem is ended? Because it lies flat, taut; nothing can be added or subtracted. How does a woman know when a marriage is over? Because of the way her life suddenly shears off in just two directions: past and future.”

“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:”

“The forest rose like a dream”