74 Quotes & Sayings By Alberto Caeiro

I don’t have a philosophy: I have senses... If I talk about Nature, it’s not because I know what it is, But because I love it, and that’s why I love it, Because when you love you never know what you love, Or why you love, or what love is. Loving is eternal innocence, And the only innocence is not thinking. Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

She’s a manner of speaking. Even the flowers don’t come back, or the green leaves. There are new flowers, new green leaves. There are other beautiful days. Nothing comes back, nothing repeats itself, because everything is real. Alberto Caeiro

To love is to think. And I almost forget to feel only from thinking about her. I don’t know what I want at all, even from her, and I don’t think about anything but her. I have a great animated distraction. When I want to meet her, I almost feel like not meeting her, So I don’t have to leave her afterwards. And I prefer thinking about her, because it’s like I’m afraid of her. I don’t know what I want at all, and I don’t want to know what I want. All I want to do is think about her. I’m asking nothing of nobody, not even her, except to think. Alberto Caeiro

If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, And Spring came the day after tomorrow, I would die peacefully, because it came the day after tomorrow. If that’s its time, when else should it come? I like it that everything is real and everything is right; And I like that it would be like this even if I didn’t like it. And so, if I die now, I die peacefully Because everything is real and everything is right. Alberto Caeiro

I’m glad I see with my eyes and not the pages I’ve read. Alberto Caeiro

And since today’s all there is for now, that’s everything. Who knows if I’ll be dead the day after tomorrow? If I’m dead the day after tomorrow, the thunderstorm day after tomorrow Will be another thunderstorm than if I hadn’t died. Of course I know thunderstorms don’t fall because I see them, But if I weren’t in the world, The world would be different –There would be me the less –And the thunderstorm would fall on a different world and would be another thunderstorm. No matter what happens, what’s falling is what’ll be falling when it falls.(7/10/1930). Alberto Caeiro

It’s stranger than every strangeness And the dreams of all the poets And the thoughts of all the philosophers, That things are really what they seem to be And there’s nothing to understand. Alberto Caeiro

The man stopped talking and was looking at the sunset. But what does someone who hates and loves want with a sunset? Alberto Caeiro

I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing, And I look at flowers and I smile.. I don’t know if they understand me Or if I understand them, But I know the truth is in them and in me And in our common divinity Of letting ourselves go and live on the EarthAnd carrying us in our arms through the contented SeasonsAnd letting the wind sing us to sleep And not have dreams in our sleep. Alberto Caeiro

Live, you say, in the present; Live only in the present. But I don’t want the present, I want reality; I want things that exist, not time that measures them. What is the present? It’s something relative to the past and the future. It’s a thing that exists in virtue of other things existing. I only want reality, things without the present. I don’t want to include time in my scheme. I don’t want to think about things as present; I want to think of them as things. I don’t want to separate them from themselves, treating them as present. I shouldn’t even treat them as real. I should treat them as nothing. I should see them, only see them; See them till I can’t think about them. See them without time, without space, To see, dispensing with everything but what you see. And this is the science of seeing, which isn’t a science. . Alberto Caeiro

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. 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. Alberto Caeiro

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) Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

I saw that there is no Nature, That Nature doesn’t exist, That there are hills, valleys, plains, That there are trees, flowers, weeds, That there are rivers and stones, But there is not a whole these belong to, That a real and true wholeness Is a sickness of our ideas. Alberto Caeiro

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) Alberto Caeiro

Everything’s different from us. That’s why everything exists. Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

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

Between what i see in a field and what I see in another field There 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

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

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

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

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

If I could take a bite of the whole world And feel it on my palate I’d be more happy for a minute or so.. But I don’t always want to be happy. Sometimes you have to be Unhappy 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 happiness Naturally, like someone who doesn’t find it strange That there are mountains and plains And that there are cliffs and grass.. What you need is to be natural and calm In 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

Night doesn’t fall for my eyes But my idea of the night is that it falls for my eyes. Beyond my thinking and having any thoughts The night falls concretely And the shining of stars exists like it had weight. Alberto Caeiro

All beings exist and nothing else And that’s why they’re called beings Alberto Caeiro

There’s enough metaphysics in not thinking about anything. Alberto Caeiro

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

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

A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy tales Acts 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

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. Alberto Caeiro

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 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

Praise be to God I’m not good, And have the natural egotism of flowers And rivers following their bed Preoccupied without knowing it Only 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing at all reminds us of something else when we pay attention to it. Each thing only reminds us of what it is And 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). Alberto Caeiro

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

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, Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

But if God is the flowers and the trees And 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. Alberto Caeiro

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

And sometimes if I want To imagine I’m a lamb( Or a whole flock Spreading out all over the hillside So 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 light And silence runs over the grass outside. When I sit and write poems Or, walking along the roads or pathways, I write poems on the paper in my thoughts, I feel a staff in my hand And see my silhouette On 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 saying But tries to pretend they do. Alberto Caeiro

Let’s be simple and calm, Like brooks and trees, And God will love us by making Beautiful 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... Alberto Caeiro

One day when God fell asleep And 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 crucified And 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 sun And came down on the first ray he caught. Alberto Caeiro

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

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. Alberto Caeiro

If they want me to have mysticism, okay, I’ve got it. I’m a mystic, but only in my body, My soul is simple and doesn’t think. Alberto Caeiro

Sometimes in the evening on Summer days, Even when there’s not a breeze at all, it seems Like there’s a light breeze blowing for a minute But the trees are unmoving In every leaf of their leaves And our feelings have had an illusion, An illusion of what would please them... Alberto Caeiro

Yes, this is what my senses alone have learned:– Things don’t have significance: they only have existence. Things are the only hidden meaning of things. Alberto Caeiro

Lightly, lightly, very lightly, A wind passes very lightly And goes away, always very lightly. And I don’t know what I think And I don’t want to know. Alberto Caeiro

The Tejo runs down from SpainAnd the Tejo goes into the sea in Portugal.Everybody knows that. But not many people know the river of my village And where it comes from And where it’s going. And so, because it belongs to less people, The river of my village is freer and greater. Alberto Caeiro

Other times when I hear the wind blow I feel that just hearing the wind blow makes it worth being born. Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

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. Alberto Caeiro

That lady has a piano. It’s nice, but it’s not the running of rivers Or the murmuring trees make ..Who needs a piano? It’s better to have ears And love Nature. Alberto Caeiro

I don’t bother with rhyme. RarelyAre two trees the same, one beside the other. I think and write like flowers have color But with less perfection in my way of expressing myself Because I lack the divine simplicity Of wholly being only my exterior. I see and I’m moved, Moved the way water runs when the ground is sloping And what I write is as natural as the rising wind... Alberto Caeiro

Water’s water and that’s why it’s beautiful. Alberto Caeiro

I don’t know how to talk because I’m feeling. I’m listening to my voice as if it were someone else’s, And my voice is speaking about her as if she were speaking. She has hair as blond as yellow wheat in the sun, And when she speaks her mouth says things that aren’t words. She laughs, and her teeth are as clean as stones in a river. Alberto Caeiro