Fernando Pessoa Quotes on Society

9 quotes

  1. There are those that even God exploits, and they are prophets and saints in the vacuousness of the world.

  2. Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.

  3. You breathe better when you're rich.

  4. In today's life, the world belongs only to the stupid, the insensitive and the agitated. The right to live and triumph is now conquered almost by the same means by which you conquer internment in an asylum: the inability to think, amorality and hiperexcitation.

  5. Art lies because it's social.

  6. And let our despite go to those who work and fight and our hate to those who hope and trust.

  7. All pleasure is a vice, for seeking pleasure is what everybody does in life, and the only dark vice is doing what everybody does.

  8. For the moment being, given that we live in society, the only duty of superior men is to reduce to a minimum their participation in the tribe's life. Not to read newspapers, or read them only to know about whatever unimportant and curious is going on. / [...] The supreme honorable state for a superior man is in not knowing who is the Head of State of his country, or if he lives under a monarchy or a republic. / All his attitude must be setting his soul so that the passing of things, of events doesn't bother him. If he doesn't do it he will have to take an interest in others in order to take care of himself.

  9. Humanitarianim is rude.

All Fernando Pessoa quotes