He should be happy because he can think about the unhappiness of others! Heâs stupid if he doesnât know other peopleâs unhappiness is theirs, And isnât cured from the outside, Because suffering isnât like running out of ink, Or a trunk not having iron bands! There being injustice is like there being death.
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 Iâm lying Has a reality so real even my back feels it. I donât need reason â I have shoulderblades.
The Amorous Shepherd is a fruitless interlude, but those few poems are among the worldâs greatest love poems, because theyâre love poems about love, not about being poems. The poet loves because he loves, not because love exists.
he woman Caeiro fell in love with. I have no idea who she was, and I intend to never find out, not even out of curiosity. There are things of which the soul refuses to lose its ignorance. Iâm perfectly aware no oneâs obliged to reciprocate love, and great poets have nothing to do with being great lovers. But thereâs a transcendent spite... Let her remain anonymous even to God!
The amorous shepherd has lost his staff, And his sheep are straying on the hillside, And he didnât 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 heâd 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)
Yes: I exist inside my body. Iâm not carrying the sun and the moon in my pocket. I donât want to conquer worlds because I slept badly, And I donât want to eat the world for breakfast because I have a stomach. Indifferent? No: a son of the earth, who, if he jumps, itâs wrong, A moment in the air thatâs not for us, And only happy when his feet hit the ground again, Pow! In reality where nothingâs missing! (6/20/1919)
They say faith is taking the first step when you canât see the whole staircase. Actually, wisdom is seeing the elevator behind it that would have taken you to the top floor.
Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.
You can turn every ugly and damaging drama into a genuine blessing by seeing it differently. No one is suffering on purpose. We learn to give up the pleasure we feel in self-righteously blaming others. Healing happens when we see things differently. The question is: do you want suffering or peace? It's that simple.
If we try every day to find that place inside us that can see a little more light and give a little more love, the quality of our life will improve significantly. We all long for love. It is the human inheritance to have such a longing. However, we must discover that in order to find it, we must give it. And when we learn to give it, we find that it is, quite amazingly, everywhere around us.