Quotes by Alberto Caeiro

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.)

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I’d like to have enough time and quietTo think about absolutely nothing,To not ever feel myself living,To only know myself in others’ eyes, reflected.

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

Nothing at all reminds us of something else when we pay attention to it.Each thing only reminds us of what it isAnd it’s only what nothing else is.The fact that it’s it separates it from every other thing.(Everything’s nothing without another thing that’s not it).

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

That thing over there was more there than it’s there!Yes, sometimes I cry about the perfect body that doesn’t exist.But the perfect body is the bodiest body there can be,And the rest are the dreams men have,The myopia of someone who doesn’t look very much,

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.

But if God is the flowers and the treesAnd the hills and the sun and the moonlight,Then I believe in him,Then I believe in him all the time,And my whole life is an oration and a mass,And a communion with my eyes and through my ears.

I’m a keeper of flocks.The flock is my thoughtsAnd my thoughts are all sensations.I think with my eyes and with my earsAnd with my hands and feetAnd with my nose and mouth.Thinking about a flower is seeing and smelling itAnd eating a piece of fruit is knowing its meaning.That’s why when on a hot dayI feel sad from liking it so much,And I throw myself lengthwise on the grassAnd shut my hot eyes,And feeling my whole body lying on reality,I know the truth and I’m happy.

And sometimes if I wantTo imagine I’m a lamb(Or a whole flockSpreading out all over the hillsideSo I can be a lot of happy things at the same time),It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset,Or when a cloud passes its hand over the lightAnd silence runs over the grass outside.When I sit and write poemsOr, walking along the roads or pathways,I write poems on the paper in my thoughts,I feel a staff in my handAnd see my silhouetteOn top of a knoll,Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas,Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock,With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s sayingBut tries to pretend they do.

Let’s be simple and calm,Like brooks and trees,And God will love us by makingBeautiful things like the trees and brooks for us,And give us greenness in his spring,And a river for us to go to when we end...

One day when God fell asleepAnd the Holy Ghost went off flying,He got into a box of miracles and stole three.With the first he made it so that no one would know he had run away.With the second he made himself a human boy forever.With the third he created a Christ eternally crucifiedAnd left him nailed to the cross that there is in HeavenWhere he’s used as a model for other crosses.Then he ran away to the sunAnd came down on the first ray he caught.

Nature never remembers, that’s why she’s beautiful.