I have within me all the dreams of the world.
Genuine
Yes. In Tobacco Shop (1933), Opening stanza, lines 1–4; dated 15 January 1928; first published in Presença, July 1933, said by Álvaro de Campos. These are the character’s words, not a statement in Pessoa’s own voice.
Found word for word by program in the Portuguese original.
The English is our own translation, not yet reviewed: there is no public-domain translation of this text in our sources.
- Work
- Tobacco Shop (Tabacaria), 1933
- Where
- Opening stanza, lines 1–4; dated 15 January 1928; first published in Presença, July 1933
- Found at
- Paragraph 1 of the Portuguese text
- Translation
- Our own, not yet reviewed (no public-domain translation in our sources)
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
Não sou nada.
Nunca serei nada.
Não posso querer ser nada.
À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.1
Janelas do meu quarto,
Do meu quarto de um dos milhões do mundo que ninguém sabe quem é
I am nothing. I will never be anything. I cannot wish to be anything. Apart from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.
The scene
Campos looks from his room towards the tobacco shop across the street. He sets his lack of an achieved identity against the abundance of his inner dreams, then contrasts the tangible street with his own inward sense that everything is a dream. At the end a greeting from the familiar Esteves briefly restores his contact with the everyday world.
What it means
An immense capacity to imagine coexists with the feeling of having become nothing. The dreams do not cancel the speaker’s failure to turn possibility into a life.
Often misread
Detached from the three negative sentences, the last line can look like a promise of limitless achievement. The poem makes the contradiction painful; these are Campos’s words, not a straightforward autobiographical declaration by Pessoa.
Topics
Related quotes
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- There is no metaphysics in the world but chocolates.
- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
- Choosing seemed to me not so much selecting as rejecting what I did not select. André Gide
- So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be. Stephen Chbosky
Sources
Cite it
Fernando Pessoa, Tobacco Shop (1933), Opening stanza, lines 1–4; dated 15 January 1928; first published in Presença, July 1933, our own translation. Spoken by Álvaro de Campos. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/all-the-dreams-of-the-world/ (31 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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