Álvaro de Campos Biography & Quotes

“It’s the poet we love in Caeiro, not the philosopher. What we really get from these poems is a childlike sense of life, with all the direct materiality of the child’s mind, and all the vital spirituality of hope and increase that exist in the body and soul of nescient childhood. Caeiro’s work is a dawn that wakes us up and quickens us; a more that material, more than anti-spiritual dawn. It’s an abstract effect, pure vacuum, nothingness.”

“I consider a dream like I consider a shadow,” answered Caeiro, with his usual divine, unexpected promptitude. “A shadow is real, but it’s less real than a rock. A dream is real — if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be a dream — but less real than a thing. That’s what being real is like.”

Philosophy Dream Reality Truth Nature Existence Seeing Shadow Paganism It Is What It Is Pantheism Fernando Pessoa Alberto Caeiro More Or Less

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“His conception of the universe is, however, instinctive, not intellectual; it can't be criticized as a concept, because there’s none there, and it can't be criticized as temperament, because temperament can't be criticized.”

Philosophy Reality Universe Seeing Criticism Clarity Feeling Temperament Concept Alberto Caeiro

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“When I’m depressed, I read Caeiro — he’s my fresh air. I become very calm, content, faithful — yes, I find faith in God, and in the soul’s transcendent living smallness, after reading the poems by that ungodly anti-humanist who goes unsurpassed on earth.”

“Tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo”

Inspirational Quote

Book:Tabacaria e Outros Poemas

Source: Tabacaria e Outros Poemas

“The Amorous Shepherd is a fruitless interlude, but those few poems are among the world’s greatest love poems, because they’re love poems about love, not about being poems. The poet loves because he loves, not because love exists.”

Love Life Reality Truth Poetry Existence Beauty Seeing Clarity Meaning Feeling Paganism Pantheism Alberto Caeiro The Amorous Shepherd

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“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. I’m perfectly aware no one’s obliged to reciprocate love, and great poets have nothing to do with being great lovers. But there’s a transcendent spite... Let her remain anonymous even to God!”

Love Reality Truth Poetry Existence Seeing Lovers Feeling Transcendence Fall In Love Alberto Caeiro Reciprocation The Amorous Shepherd

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“Superior poets say what they really feel. Mediocre poets say what they decide to feel. Inferior poets say what they think they should feel.”

Thinking Life Writing Reality Truth Poetry Poet Meaning Feeling Poets Mediocre Paganism Pantheism Superior Inferior

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“But what you’re calling poetry is what everything is. It’s not even poetry — it’s seeing. These materialists are blind. You told me they say space is infinite. Where do they see that in space?” And I, disconcerted: “But don’t you think of space as infinite? Can’t you conceive of space as infinite?” “I don’t conceive of anything as being infinite. How could I conceive of anything as being infinite?” “But, man,” I said, “Imagine space. Beyond that space is more space, and beyond that more, and then more, and more... It never ends...“ “Why?” asked my master Caeiro.”

Life God Reality Poetry Universe Nature Space Existence Seeing Eternity Clarity Materialism Feeling Infinity Paganism It Is What It Is Pantheism No Mind

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“and the idea of nothingness — the most terrifying of all ideas, when thought of with feeling — has, in my dear master’s work and in my memories of him, something as high and luminous as sunlight upon snowy, unscalable peaks.”

Life Reality Universe Existence Snow Clarity Meaning Feeling Nothingness Being Mountains Paganism Pantheism Sunligh

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“I suddenly asked my master Caeiro, “Are you at peace with yourself?” and he answered, “No, I’m at peace.” It was like the voice of the earth, which is everything and no one.”

Life God Truth Universe Nature Existence Beauty Seeing Simplicity Clarity Meaning Tranquility Paganism Master It Is What It Is Pantheism At Peace

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“the Great Vaccination — the vaccination against the stupidity of the intelligentsia.”

Reality Truth Existence Stupidity Clarity Being Paganism It Is What It Is Pantheism Vaccination Intelligentsia Menain

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“He possesses the minimum sensibility necessary for his intelligence not to be merely mathematical, the minimum a human being needs so that it can be proven with a thermometer that he's not dead.”

Life Nature Existence Seeing Mathematics Sensibility Being Paganism Human Being Pantheism Ricardo Reis Thermometer

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“in exceptional circumstances — exceptional in that all circumstances in life are exceptional, especially those which are nothing in themselves and come to be everything in their results.”

Life God Reality Nature Change Beauty Destiny Meaning Exceptional Paganism Pantheism Circumstance Turn Of The Tide

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“Que grande vantagem o recordar intrasigentemente! Agora tenho pena de nunca mais ter visto a outra rapariga E tenho pena de nem sequer ter olhado para esta (...) Porque todas as recordações são a mesma recordação, Tudo o que foi é a mesma morte, Ontem, hoje, quem sabe se até amanhã?”

Poetry Poem Memory Fernando Pessoa Acaso Lembranças Recordação

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“Nothing: a landscape, a glass of wine, a little loveless love, and the vague sadness caused by our understanding nothing and having lost the little we're given.”

Love God Truth Understanding Nature Loss Existence Beauty Wine Landscape Meaning Meaningless Nothingness Paganism It Is What It Is Pantheism Ricardo Reis

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“It’s stupid, but it’s human, and that’s how it is.”

Life Reality Humanity Human Simplicity Clarity Meaning Paganism It Is What It Is Pantheism Existened

Author:Álvaro de Campos

“E o resto que venha se vier, ou tiver que vir, ou não venha.”

Indifference Existentialism Exhaustion Existential Dread

Book:Tabacaria

Source: Tabacaria

Álvaro de Campos Biography

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