The Book of Disquiet (1982) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Moreira: Add a description of this character.
• Vieira
• Douradores: Not so much a character as the name of a street in Lisbon! Rue dos Douradores.
• Khayyam

Quotes edit see section history

• “Mudem-me os deuses os sonhos, mas não o dom de sonhar”

• “A Violência, seja qual for, foi sempre para mim uma forma esbugalhada de estupidez humana”

• “Nunca poderia odiar uma terra em que houvesse visto um poente escandaloso”

• “Ler é sonhar pela mão de outrem”

• “O que não temos, ou não ousamos, ou não conseguimos, podemos possuí-lo em sonho, e é com esse sonho que fazemos arte”

• “As figuras de romance são - como todos sabem - tão reais como qualquer de nós”

• “A vida é a busca do impossível através do inútil”

• “Tudo é dos outros, salvo a mágoa de o não ter”

• “I envy - though I’m not sure if envy is the right word - those people about whom one could write a biography, or who could write their autobiography. Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.”

• “Era um homem que aparentava trinta anos, magro, mais alto que baixo, curvado exageradamente quando sentado, mas menos quando de pé, vestido com um certo desleixo não inteiramente desleixado. Na face pálida e sem interesse de feições um ar de sofrimento não acrescentava interesse, e era difícil definir que espécie de sofrimento esse ar indicava — parecia indicar vários, privações, angústias, e aquele sofrimento que nasce da indiferença que provém de ter sofrido muito.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The nocturnal glory of being great without being anything!

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• I was born in a time when the majority of young people had lost faith in God, for the same reason their elders had had it – without knowing why.

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• Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness, which is the very basis of life. Could it think, the heart would stop beating.

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• Some are exploited by God himself, and they are prophets and saints in this vacuous world.

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• We should wash our destiny the way we wash our body, and change life the way we change clothes – not to preserve life, as when we eat and sleep, but out of objective respect for ourselves, which is what personal hygiene is all about.

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• Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways.

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• The only way to survive in this world is by keeping alive our dream, without ever fulfilling it, since the fulfilment never measures up to what we imagine – this was the closest thing to a message that Pessoa left, and he gave us Bernardo Soares to show us how it’s done.

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• We never know self-realization. We are two abysses – a well staring at the sky.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• What is there to confess that’s worthwhile or useful? What has happened to us has happened to everyone or only to us; if to everyone, then it’s no novelty, and if only to us, then it won’t be understood. If I write what I feel, it’s to reduce the fever of feeling.

  Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers

• We may know that the work we continue to put off doing will be bad. Worse, however, is the work we never do. A work that’s finished is at least finished. It may be poor, but it exists, like the miserable plant in the lone flowerpot of my neighbour who’s crippled. That plant is her happiness, and sometimes it’s even mine. What I write, bad as it is, may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse. That’s enough for me, or it isn’t enough, but it serves some purpose, and so it is with all of life.

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Lisbon
• China
• Rome
• Portugal

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Fernando Pessoa (Author)
2. Bernardo Soares

Other Contributors:

1. Bernardo Soares - Heteronym under which Pessoa wrote this book
2. Richard Zenith (Translator)
3. Christian Rugstad (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 869.141

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Poetry › Single Authors › Continental European
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( P ) › Pessoa, Fernando
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Portuguese
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Arts & Literature › Authors
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

More Books Like This edit see section history