The Keeper of Sheep Quotes

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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 Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“The man stopped talking and was looking at the sunset.
But what does someone who hates and loves want with a sunset?”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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 Universe
Because I bring the Universe to itself.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“There’s enough metaphysics in not thinking about anything.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Keeper of Sheep

“Things don’t have significance: they only have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning of things.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“I pass and I stay, like the Universe.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“Pensar incomoda como andar à chuva
Quando o vento cresce e parece que chove mais.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of the Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“There’s enough metaphysics in not thinking about anything.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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 Earth
For 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, The Keeper of Sheep

“quem ama nunca sabe o que ama
Nem sabe por que ama, nem o que é amar ...
Amar é a eterna inocência,
E a única inocência não pensar...”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“A row of trees far away, there on the hillside.
But what is it, a row of trees? It’s just trees.
Row and the plural trees aren’t things, they’re names.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“Also at times, on the surface of streams,
Water?bubbles form
And grow and burst
And have no meaning at all
Except that they’re water?bubbles
Growing and bursting.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“Se eu pudesse trincar a terra toda
E sentir-lhe um paladar,
Seria mais feliz um momento ...
Mas eu nem sempre quero ser feliz.
É preciso ser de vez em quando infeliz
Para se poder ser natural...
Nem tudo é dias de sol,
E a chuva, quando falta muito, pede-se.
Por isso tomo a infelicidade com a felicidade
Naturalmente, como quem não estranha
Que haja montanhas e planícies
E que haja rochedos e erva ...
O que é preciso é ser-se natural e calmo
Na felicidade ou na infelicidade,
Sentir como quem olha,
Pensar como quem anda,
E quando se vai morrer, lembrar-se de que o dia morre,
E que o poente é belo e é bela a noite que fica...
Assim é e assim seja ...”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“All beings exist and nothing else
And that’s why they’re called beings”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“Nem sempre consigo sentir o que sei que devo sentir.
O meu pensamento só muito devagar atravessa o rio a nado
Porque lhe pesa o fato que os homens o fizeram usar.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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 Keeper of Sheep

“Pensar é não compreender.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“If I talk about her like she’s a being
It’s because talking about her I need to use the language of men
Which gives personality to things,
And imposes a name on things.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“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, The Keeper of Sheep

“Creo en el mundo como en una margarita
porque lo veo. Pero no pienso en él,
porque pensar es no comprender...
El mundo no se hizo para pensar en él
(pensar es estar enfermo de los ojos)
sino para mirar hacia él y estar de acuerdo...

Yo no tengo filosofía: tengo sentidos...
Si hablo de la Naturaleza no es porque sepa lo que es
sino porque la amo, y la amo por eso,
porque quien ama nunca sabe lo que ama
ni sabe por qué ama, ni lo que es amar...”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Keeper of Sheep