Collection of some favorite quotes of mine. New entries are more or less intentionally arranged.

Certain things are visible only in speech.

— Teju Cole, writer/photographer

Aqui poemas para lerem, em silêncio, o olho, o coração e a inteligência…

— Paulo Leminski, poet

If you ask me for really dangerous ideological films, for ideology at its purest, I’d say Kung Fu Panda.

— Slavoj Žižek, philosopher

Alors, Monsieur Beckett, vous êtes anglais ?

Au contraire.

— Samuel Beckett, dramatist

Cuando miro la forma de América en el mapa, amor, a ti te veo.

— Pablo Neruda, poet

Design something that gets better with use.

— Bill Moggridge, designer

Fracassei em tudo o que tentei na vida. Tentei alfabetizar as crianças brasileiras, não consegui. Tentei salvar os índios, não consegui. Tentei fazer uma universidade séria e fracassei. Tentei fazer o Brasil desenvolver-se autonomamente e fracassei. Mas os fracassos são minhas vitórias. Eu detestaria estar no lugar de quem me venceu.

— Darcy Ribeiro, anthropologist

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett, dramatist

A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

— Jorge Luis Borges, writer

Nothing's sacred for those who think. The filthy fingering of touchy subjects is music to their ears.

— Wisława Szymborska, poet

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

— Leonard Cohen, musician

A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence.

— Roland Barthes, semiotician

There's beauty in simplicity; the smallest moments can hold the greatest significance.

— Wong Kar-Wai, director

Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.

— Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist

A luz no fim do túnel é, no máximo, outro trem vindo em alta velocidade.

— Slavoj Žižek, philosopher

The Times asked Samuel Beckett for his New Year's resolutions and hopes.

resolutions colon zero stop period hopes colon zero stop beckett.

— Samuel Beckett, dramatist

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

— Antonio Gramsci, philosopher

I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves them.

— Pina Bausch, choreographer

I don't want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.

— Agnès Varda, director

O objetivo de toda arte não é algo impossível? O poeta exprime (ou quer exprimir) o inexprimível, o pintor reproduz o irreproduzível, o estatuário fixa o infixável. Não é surpreendente, pois, que o tradutor se empenhe em traduzir o intraduzível.

— Paulo Rónai, translator

Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.ˮ

— May 68, Sciences-Po

É tempo de não mais se contentarem com essas gotas no oceano.

— Bertolt Brecht, dramatist

POESIA: “words set to music” (Dante via Pound), “uma viagem ao desconhecido” (Maiakovski), “cernes e medulas” (Ezra Pound), “a fala do infalável (Goethe), “linguagem voltada para a sua própria materialidade” (Jakobson), “permanente hesitação entre som e sentido” (Paul Valéry), “fundação do ser mediante a palavra” (Heidegger), “a religião original da humanidade” (Novalis), “as melhores palavras na melhor ordem” (Coleridge), “emoção relembrada na tranquilidade” (Wordsworth), “ciência e paixão” (Alfred de Vigny), “se faz com palavras, não com idéias” (Mallarmé), “música que se faz com idéias” (Ricardo Reis/ Fernando Pessoa), “um fingimento deveras” (Fernando Pessoa), “criticism of life” (Mathew Arnold), “palavra-coisa” (Sartre), “linguagem em estado de pureza selvagem” (Octavio Paz), “poetry is to inspire” (Bob Dylan), “design de linguagem” (Décio Pignatari), “lo imposible hecho posible” (García Lorca), “aquilo que se perde na tradução” (Robert Frost), “a liberdade da minha linguagem” (Paulo Leminski)…

— Paulo Leminski, poet

My world has just become perfect, pain is also a joy. Go away, or you'll learn: a wise man is also insane.

– Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

— Noam Chomsky, linguist

Insignificance, my friend, is the essence of existence… It's all around us, we must learn to love it.

— Milan Kundera, novelist

A photographer is literally someone who writes and rewrites the world with light and shadow.

— Sebastião Salgado, photographer

Being diferent isn't good or bad. It only means that you are brave enough to be yourself.

— Albert Camus, philosopher

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

— Valerius Catullus, poet

Il faut être absolument moderne.

— Arthur Rimbaud, poet

The truth is the whole.

— Friedrich Hegel, philosopher