Decadence is the total loss of unconscious life because unconsciousness is the basis of life. If the heart could think it would stop.

-Fernando Pessoa

Pessoa has a problem to solve in relation to existing and what is expressed on an unconscious level, this in order to establish or to rather distinguish himself. Consciousness, therefore, is the central element that drives this forcefully. Existence is consciousness and vise versa. (= Marco Almeida)

"Evening falls lightly, the end of the certain day, when those who believe and who wander engage in their usual work, and they have, in their own pain, the happiness of unconscious."

-Fernando Pessoa

For a long time, I haven't existed. I am extremely calm. No one can distinguish me from who I am. I felt myself breathe just now as if I'd done something new, something late in coming to me. I begin to be conscious of being conscious. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up to myself and again take the course of my existence. I don't know if by doing so I will be happier or sadder. I know nothing.

At least I can feel sad and be aware that in this sadness of mine - seen with hearing... For a long time, I haven't been myself.

-Fernando Pessoa

In an intimate stagnation of thinking and feeling... For a long time, not only have I not written but I haven't existed either. I think I only dream. The streets for me are streets. I do my work at the office with an awareness concentrated exclusively on it, but it would be incorrect of me to say I do it without distraction: behind it, I am not meditating but sleeping; however I am always someone else behind my work.

-Fernando Pessoa

We do not have, it is true, a concept of value to apply to the work we produce.

-Fernando Pessoa

Decadence is the total loss of unconscious life because unconsciousness is the basis of life. If the heart could think it would stop.

-Fernando Pessoa