Let's develop theories, patiently and honestly thinking them out, in order to promptly act against them – acting and justifying our actions with new theories that condemn them. Let's cut a path in life and then go immediately against that path. Let's adopt all the poses and gestures of something we aren't and don't even wish to be, and don't even wish to taken for being.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of questioning established ideas and norms while simultaneously acknowledging the complexities of identity and belief.
Fernando Pessoa's quote encourages a critical approach to understanding life and our actions. It suggests that we should develop theories thoughtfully, while being aware of the contradictions in our choices and identities. By advocating for a reflective yet bold stance, the quote illustrates the tension between conformity and self-authenticity, highlighting the experimental nature of existence where one must navigate through beliefs and actions that may not align with one's true self.
In practice
In a discussion about self-identity during a psychology class.
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.
Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket.
Generous gestures yield the most when that isn't their purpose.
To confess your sins to God is not to tell [God] anything [God] doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy.
Nothing would catch me off guard, because I understand the world I live in. I understand it very well. And the world I live in is not necessarily a fair or just world. I have dealt with these injustices for the bigger part of my life.
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