I sometimes think, with a sad delight, that if one day, in a future I no longer belong to, these sentences, that I write, last with praise, I will at last have the people who understand me, those mine, the true family to be born in and be loved. [...] I will only be understood in effigy, when affection no longer repays the dead the unaffection that was, when living.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The writer hopes to be understood only after death, when judgment fades.
- In plain terms
- I want people to understand me after I die.
- What can you take from it?
- True understanding may come only after you are gone.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Do you want to be understood now or later?
- What would you write for the future?
Another view
Understanding can happen while you are alive too.
More from Fernando Pessoa
To think is to destroy. The very process of thought indicates it for the same thought, as thinking is decomposing.
Permalink to quote #105 Enthusiasm is rude.
Permalink to quote #107 Common man, no matter how hard life is to him, at least has the fortune of not thinking it.
Permalink to quote #104
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