„Mi-am cucerit, puţin câte puţin, teritoriul interior care urma să fie al meu. Mi-am cerut, unul după altul, întinsurile de mlaştină în care nu mai rămăsese nimic din mine. Şi am scos la iveală fiinţa mea infinită, dar a trebuit să mă scot pe mine din mine cu forcepsul”. - Fernando Pessoa, "Cartea neliniştirii

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes.

Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself.

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.

I loathe the happiness of all these people who don't know they're unhappy.

I don't even suffer. My disdain for everything is so complete that I even disdain myself. The contempt I have for the sufferings of others I also have for my own. And so all my suffering is crushed under the foot of my disdain.