To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing. Be whole in everything.
Interpretation
Embrace all aspects of life to achieve greatness.
Fernando Pessoa's quote emphasizes the importance of embracing all parts of oneself and one's experiences to achieve true greatness. By saying 'exclude nothing,' he suggests that both the positive and negative aspects of life contribute to a person's full being, and it is by accepting and integrating these diverse elements that one can become truly whole and accomplished.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth.
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.
The truly patient man neither complains of his hard lot nor desires to be pitied by others. He speaks of his sufferings in a natural, true, and sincere way, without murmuring, complaining, or exaggerating them.
I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless he sees that it is good for him to wait.
There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.
If you really want to know what's happening here and now, you've got to use your own eyes and your own judgment.
It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being good.
Forgiveness is a gift to myself. I forgive, and I set myself free.
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