“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.” SoulPhilosophyRealityPoetrySpiritualityHopeNatureExistenceChildhoodClarityPurityMaterialismNothingnessBeingPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismVacuumDirectnessAlberto CaeiroElanVitalismAnti Spiritual Author:Álvaro de Campos
“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.” PhilosophyDreamRealityTruthNatureExistenceSeeingShadowPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismFernando PessoaAlberto CaeiroMore Or Less 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.” LifeSoulGodPoetryUniverseReadingBeautyDepressionCalmMeaningContentmentFaithfulnessPaganismFresh AirPantheismSmallnessAlberto CaeiroUngodlyAnti HumanistEartTransendence Author:Álvaro de Campos
“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.” LoveLifeRealityTruthPoetryExistenceBeautySeeingClarityMeaningFeelingPaganismPantheismAlberto CaeiroThe 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.” ThinkingLifeWritingRealityTruthPoetryPoetMeaningFeelingPoetsMediocrePaganismPantheismSuperiorInferior 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.” LifeGodRealityPoetryUniverseNatureSpaceExistenceSeeingEternityClarityMaterialismFeelingInfinityPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismNo 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.” LifeRealityUniverseExistenceSnowClarityMeaningFeelingNothingnessBeingMountainsPaganismPantheismSunligh 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.” LifeGodTruthUniverseNatureExistenceBeautySeeingSimplicityClarityMeaningTranquilityPaganismMasterIt Is What It IsPantheismAt Peace Author:Álvaro de Campos
“the Great Vaccination — the vaccination against the stupidity of the intelligentsia.” RealityTruthExistenceStupidityClarityBeingPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismVaccinationIntelligentsiaMenain 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.” LifeNatureExistenceSeeingMathematicsSensibilityBeingPaganismHuman BeingPantheismRicardo ReisThermometer 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.” LifeGodRealityNatureChangeBeautyDestinyMeaningExceptionalPaganismPantheismCircumstanceTurn Of The Tide 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.” LoveGodTruthUnderstandingNatureLossExistenceBeautyWineLandscapeMeaningMeaninglessNothingnessPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismRicardo Reis Author:Álvaro de Campos
“It’s stupid, but it’s human, and that’s how it is.” LifeRealityHumanityHumanSimplicityClarityMeaningPaganismIt Is What It IsPantheismExistened Author:Álvaro de Campos