My soul is a black maelstrom, a great madness spinning about a vacuum, the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void, and in the waters, more like whirlwinds than waters, float images of all I ever saw or heard in the world: houses, faces, books, boxes, snatches of music and fragments of voices, all caught up in a sinister, bottomless whirlpool. Fernando Pessoa
About This Quote

This quote is taken from the short story, "The Great Madness of My Soul," by Edgar Allen Poe. It is one of Poe's more frightening stories. The story begins with a narrator who says that he has been blind for seven years. He has only recently regained his vision, and he starts describing what he sees.

Instead of describing the images around him, however, he describes images in his mind. He describes scenes of horror that are all based on real memories that he has of his past life.

Source: The Book Of Disquiet

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about. - Jalaluddin Rumi
  2. I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. - Leo Tolstoy
  3. What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul - Victor Hugo
  4. Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth,... - Unknown
  5. Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation. - Jalaluddin Rumi
More Quotes By Fernando Pessoa
  1. There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
  2. I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful – only then do...
  3. If after I die, people want to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. They only need two dates: the date of my birth and the date of my death. Between one and another, every day is mine.
  4. Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely,...
  5. Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me...
Related Topics