If this be to have sense, if to be awake Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things, For the rarer potion mine own dreams I'll take And for truth commune with imaginings
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the contrast between reality and dreams, suggesting that true understanding comes from engaging with one's imagination.
In this quote, Fernando Pessoa explores the nature of consciousness and reality. He presents the idea that merely being awake and perceiving the world is insufficient; instead, one must also embrace their dreams and imagination to find deeper truths. The 'bright, great sleep of things' signifies the superficiality of reality, whereas the 'rarer potion' of dreams highlights the value of internal exploration and the pursuit of profound understanding beyond the mundane.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion about the importance of creativity in personal development.
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.
Finally, the intercom crackles and Hatmitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, 'And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.
Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?
We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.
God seems to have left the receiver off the hook and time is running out.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
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