Quotes from Alberto Caeiro

I don't always feel what I know I should feel. My thought crosses the river I swim very slowly Because the suit men made it wear weighs it down.

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

A stagecoach passed by on the road and went on; And the road didn't become more beautiful or even more ugly. That's human action on the outside world. We take nothing away and we put nothing back, we pass by and we forget; And the sun is always punctual every day. (5/7/14)

Sinto uma alegria enorme Ao pensar que a minha morte não tem importância nenhuma.

Everything's different from us. That's why everything exists.

I love flowers for being flowers, directly. And I love trees for being trees without my thought.

quem ama nunca sabe o que ama Nem sabe por que ama, nem o que é amar ... Amar é a eterna inocência, E a única inocência não pensar...

Water's water and that's why it's beautiful.

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 explanation Than the word explanation having no meaning at all.

the world wasn't made for us to think about it (to think is to have eyes that aren't well) but to look at it and be in agreement.

He should be happy because he can think about the unhappiness of others! He's stupid if he doesn't know other people's unhappiness is theirs, And isn't cured from the outside, Because suffering isn't like running out of ink, Or a trunk not having iron bands! There being injustice is like there being death.

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 plants And stop seeing the Earth For only seeing my thoughts... I'll get unhappy and stay in the dark. And so, without thinking, I have the Earth and the Sky.

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

On a whitely cloudy day I get sad, almost afraid, And I begin to meditate about problems I make up.

A row of trees far away, there on the hillside. But what is it, a row of trees? It's just trees. Row and the plural trees aren't things, they're names.

Also at times, on the surface of streams, Water?bubbles form And grow and burst And have no meaning at all Except that they're water?bubbles Growing and bursting.

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 lying Has a reality so real even my back feels it. I don't need reason — I have shoulderblades.

I'm in no hurry. What for? The sun and moon aren't in a hurry: they're right. Hurrying is believing people can get past their legs, Or that, jumping, they can land past their shadow. No; I don't know how to hurry.

There are no roses in my yard: what wind brought you? But I suddenly come from far away. I was sick for a moment. No wind whatsoever brought you now. Now you're here. What you were isn't you, or else the whole rose would be here.

It's an already inside outside, The philosophers say it's the soul But it's not the soul: it's the animal or the man itself In its way of existing.

Ser poeta não é uma ambição minha. É a minha maneira de estar sozinho.

Let's only care about the place where we are. There's beauty enough in being here and not anywhere else. If there's someone beyond the curve in the road, Let them worry about what's past the curve in the road, That's what the road is to them.

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.

She goes on with her beautiful hair and mouth like before, I go on like before, alone in the field. It's like my head had been lowered, And if I think this, and raise my head And the golden sun dries the need to cry I can't stop having. How vast the field and interior love... ! I look, and I forget, like dryness where there was water and trees losing their leaves.