Fernando Pessoa

Portugal
13 Jun 1888 // 30 Nov 1935
Poet

Freedom

Oh what a pleasure
Not fulfill a duty,
Having a book to read
And not doing it!
To read is a bore,
To study is nothing.
The sun shines
Without literature
The river flows, good or bad,
Without original edition.
And the breeze, that one,
Is so naturally matutinal,
As time has no hurry...

Books are papers painted with ink.
To study is a thing that is indistinct
The distinction between anything and nothing.

So much better, as there is fog,
To wait for King Sebastian,
Whether he comes or not!

Great is poetry, the kindness and the dances...
But the world's best are the children,

Flowers, music, the moonlight and the sun, who sins
Only when, instead of creating, dries.

More than that
It is Jesus Christ,
Who knew nothing about finance
And there is no evidence that he had a library...

Fernando Pessoa, in 'Songbook'
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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