QuoteProject
I think of life as an inn where I have to stay until the abyss coach arrives. I don't know where it will take me, for I know nothing.
Fernando Pessoa
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Life is a temporary stay, and the end is uncertain.

In this quote, Fernando Pessoa metaphorically describes life as an inn, suggesting that we are merely temporary guests in this world. The 'abyss coach' symbolizes death and the inevitable journey beyond life, highlighting the uncertainty and mystery of what lies ahead after our time here is over.

Themes

LifeDeathPhilosophyExistenceUncertainty

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the transient nature of life, this quote could be used to illustrate our temporary existence.

More from Fernando Pessoa

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.
Fernando PessoaRead
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.
Fernando PessoaRead
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.
Fernando PessoaRead
I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
Fernando PessoaRead
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
Fernando PessoaRead
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
Fernando PessoaRead

Similar quotes

Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
Black ElkRead
To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?
Donna TarttRead
My worthy friend, gray are all theories_x000D_ _x000D_ And green alone Life's golden tree.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can't not be what everyone says I am. But I don't feel like an icon.
Jane GoodallRead
Men really need sea-monsters in their personal oceans. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.
John SteinbeckRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.