Creator of indifferences” is the motto I want for my spirit today. I'd like my life's activity to consist, above all, in educating others to feel more and more for themselves, and less and less according to the dynamic low of collectiveness. To educate people in that spiritual antisepsis which precludes contamination by commonness and vulgarity is the loftiest destiny I can imagine for the pedagogue of inner discipline that I aspire to be. If all who read me would learn – slowly, of course, as the subject matter requires – to be completely insensitive to the other people's opinions and even their glances, that would be enough of a garland to make up for my life's scholastic stagnation.
Pessoa, Fernando
authenticity, independence