Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.
Interpretation
The quote expresses skepticism about the depth of friendship, suggesting that acquaintances may only feel a superficial concern.
Fernando Pessoa reflects on the nature of friendship, implying that what we often call friends are, in reality, merely acquaintances who may feel a fleeting sense of pity rather than genuine care. He questions the authenticity of these relationships, suggesting that true friends are rare, and that many people only express concern in response to dramatic events rather than through everyday support and connection.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of friendships at a social gathering.
I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with everything I could have said.
It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.
We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.
I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
Being able to make friends and keep them, welcoming others and sharing with them, a guide, philosopher and friend. One like this will be praised.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
They were gone and I missed them but even so I was very happy. For the rest of my life no matter where on this planet earth I went and no matter how scared or confused I got, I could wait until dark and look up into the night sky and see my three friends again and my heart would swell with love of them and make me strong and clearheaded.
No-one can replace Richard Wright - he was my musical partner and my friend.
I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world -not much remembered when the ball is over.
The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken.
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