76 Quotes by Alberto Caeiro

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

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)

Accept the universeAs the gods gave it to you.If the gods wanted to give you something elseThey’d have done it.If there are other matters and other worldsThere are.

Also at times, on the surface of streams,Water?bubbles formAnd grow and burstAnd have no meaning at allExcept that they’re water?bubblesGrowing and bursting.

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.

I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either.Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.If where I want to go is far away, I’m not there in an instant.(6/20/1919)

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.

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

It’s stranger than every strangenessAnd the dreams of all the poetsAnd the thoughts of all the philosophers,That things are really what they seem to beAnd there’s nothing to understand.