Fernando Pessoa

Portugal
13 Jun 1888 // 30 Nov 1935
Poet

Do Make it Better

Like to a ship that storms urge on its course,
By its own trials our soul is surer made.
The very things that make the voyage worse
Do make it better; its peril is its aid.
And, as the storm drives from the storm, our heart
Within the peril disimperilled grows;
A port is near the more from port we part �
The port whereto our driven direction goes.
If we reap knowledge to cross-profit, this
From storms we learn, when tbe storm's height doth drive �
That the black presence of its violence is
The pushing promise of near far blue skies.
Learn we but how to have the pilot-skill,
And the storm's verv might shall mate our will.

Fernando Pessoa, in 'English Poetry - 35 sonnets'
Search

 

On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays