All is worthwhile if the soul is not small.
Interpretation
Having a grand perspective makes life's experiences valuable.
This quote by Fernando Pessoa emphasizes the importance of having a broad and open-minded outlook. A 'small soul' reflects narrow thinking or limited experiences, while a larger soul appreciates the richness and complexity of life, making every moment and experience worthwhile.
In practice
During a motivational speech, to encourage people to embrace challenges with a greater perspective.
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 breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep.
I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. To be a writer - this may seem trite, I realize - you have to actually write.
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmie that he can? Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made
There is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.
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