The collection / 73 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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73 results · Page 2 of 4Play this collection ▷

01Undated

If science wants to be truthful,What science is more truthful than the science of things without science?I close my eyes and the hard earth where I’m lyingHas a reality so real even my back feels it.I don’t need reason — I have shoulderblades.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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02Undated

I was born subject like others to errors and defects,But never to the error of wanting to understand too much,Never to the error of wanting to understand only with the intellect..Never to the defect of demanding of the WorldThat it be anything that’s not the World.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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03Undated

Between what i see in a field and what I see in another fieldThere passes for a moment the figure of a man.His steps go with “him” in the same reality,But I look at him and them, and they’re two things:The “man” goes walking with his ideas, false and foreign,And his steps go with the ancient system that makes legs walk.I see him from a distance without any opinion at all.How perfect that he is in him what he is — his body,His true reality which doesn’t have desires or hopes,But muscles and the sure and impersonal way of using them.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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04Undated

The amorous shepherd has lost his staff,And his sheep are straying on the hillside,And he didn’t even play the flute he brought to play because he was thinking so much.No one came to him or went away. He never found his staff again.Others, cursing at him, gathered his sheep for him.No one had loved him, in the end.When he got up from the hillside and the false truth, he saw everything:The great valleys full of the same green as always,The great distant mountains, more real than any feeling,All reality, with the sky and the air and the fields that exist, is present.(And once again the air, that he’d missed for so long, entered coolly into his lungs)And he felt that the air was opening again, but with pain, a liberty in his chest.(7/10/1930)

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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05Undated

All the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other,Wanting to do good, wanting to do evil.Our soul and the sky and the earth are enough for us.To want more is to lose this, and be unhappy.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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06Undated

Something changed in part of reality — my knees and my hands.What science has knowledge for this?The blind man goes on his way and I don’t make any more gestures.It’s already not the same time, or the same people, or anything the same.This is being real.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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07Undated

Even so, I’m somebody.I’m the Discoverer of Nature.I’m the Argonaut of true sensations.I bring a new Universe to the UniverseBecause I bring the Universe to itself.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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08Undated

If I could take a bite of the whole worldAnd feel it on my palateI’d be more happy for a minute or so...But I don’t always want to be happy.Sometimes you have to beUnhappy to be natural...Not every day is sunny.When there’s been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come.So I take unhappiness with happinessNaturally, like someone who doesn’t find it strangeThat there are mountains and plainsAnd that there are cliffs and grass...What you need is to be natural and calmIn happiness and in unhappiness,To feel like someone seeing,To think like someone walking,And when it’s time to die, remember the day dies,And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful...That’s how it is and that’s how it should be...

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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09Undated

Night doesn’t fall for my eyesBut my idea of the night is that it falls for my eyes.Beyond my thinking and having any thoughtsThe night falls concretelyAnd the shining of stars exists like it had weight.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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10Undated

All beings exist and nothing elseAnd that’s why they’re called beings

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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11Undated

There’s enough metaphysics in not thinking about anything.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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12Undated

And I find a happiness in the fact of accepting —In the sublimely scientific and difficult fact of accepting the inevitable natural.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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13Undated

Things don’t have significance: they only have existence.Things are the only hidden meaning of things.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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14Undated

A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy talesActs like a sick god, but like a god.Because even though he affirms that what doesn’t exist exists,He knows things exist, that he exists,He knows existing exists and doesn’t explain itself,And he knows there’s no reason at all for anything to exist.He knows being is the point.All he doesn’t know is that thought isn’t the point.(10/1/1917)

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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15Undated

If I die very young, hear this:I was never anything but a kid playing.I was a heathen like the sun and the water,I had the universal religion only people don’t have.I was happy because I didn’t ask for anything at all,Or tried to find anything,And I didn’t find any more explanationThan the word explanation having no meaning at all.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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16Undated

What does this think about that?Nothing thinks about anything.Does the earth have consciousness of its stones and plants?If it did, it would be people. . .Why am I worrying about this?If I think about these things,I’ll stop seeing trees and plantsAnd stop seeing the EarthFor only seeing my thoughts...I’ll get unhappy and stay in the dark.And so, without thinking, I have the Earth and the Sky.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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17Undated

Praise be to God I’m not good,And have the natural egotism of flowersAnd rivers following their bedPreoccupied without knowing itOnly with blooming and flowing.This is the only mission in the World,This—to exist clearly,And to know how to do it without thinking about it.)

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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18Undated

Yes: I exist inside my body.I’m not carrying the sun and the moon in my pocket.I don’t want to conquer worlds because I slept badly,And I don’t want to eat the world for breakfast because I have a stomach.Indifferent?No: a son of the earth, who, if he jumps, it’s wrong,A moment in the air that’s not for us,And only happy when his feet hit the ground again,Pow! In reality where nothing’s missing!(6/20/1919)

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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19Undated

Pensar incomoda como andar à chuvaQuando o vento cresce e parece que chove mais.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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20Undated

If I talk about her like she’s a beingIt’s because talking about her I need to use the language of menWhich gives personality to things,And imposes a name on things.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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21Undated

I don’t regret anything I was before because I still am.I only regret not having loved you.Put your hands in mineAnd let’s be quiet, surrounded by life.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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22Undated

The river of my village doesn’t make you think about anything.When you’re at its bank you’re only at its bank.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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23Undated

I don’t know what understanding myself is. I don’t look inside.I don’t believe I exist behind myself.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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24Undated

Now I sense the perfume of flowers like seeing a new thing.I know they smell just as well as I know I existed.They’re things known from the outside.But now I know with my breathing from the back of my head.

Alberto Caeiro / quote

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