35 phrases by Olavo Bilac to greet this memorable Brazilian poet

After the dream, reality is sad!

Extreme kiss, my reward and my punishment. Baptism and Extreme Unction. In that instant, why, happy, did I not die with you?

You were the best kiss of my life, or maybe the worst… Glory and torment, with you in the light I climbed from the sky, with you I went through the infernal descent!

There are a hundred thousand lives in a human life. A hundred thousand sins fit in a heart!

Look: I can’t anymore! I am so full of this love that my soul is consumed with exalting you in the eyes of the universe…

Cursed be you for the lost ideal! For the evil you did unintentionally! For the love that died without being born! For the hours lived without pleasure!

Have you noticed how people who do nothing complain about lack of time?

The homeland is not the race, it is not the environment, it is not the set of economic and political apparatuses: it is the language created or inherited by the people.

Enough of deceit! Show me fearlessly to men, confronting them face to face: I want all men, when I pass, envious, to point their finger at me.

The only way to create free men is to educate them, another way has not yet been invented and certainly never will.

And more elevates the heart of a man, to be a man always and, in the greatest purity, to stay on earth and humanly love.

Some people think I’m lost, because I’m hearing stars. Only those who love have the ear to hear and understand them.

God gave me immensity as a cage: Don’t rob me of my freedom… I want to fly! To fly!

Missing: presence of the absent.

You are neither good nor bad… You are sad and human.

It is not enough for me to know that I am loved, nor do I just want your love: I want to hold your delicate body in my arms… To have the sweetness of your kiss in my mouth.

We do not weep, friend, the youth; let us grow old laughing, let us grow old as strong trees grow old, in the glory of joy and goodness, sheltering the birds in the branches, giving shade and comfort to those who suffer.

Delusional longing, in the perpetual longing for a minute.

Everything without you is then deserted.

Love is a broad and rich tree Of golden fruits and drunkenness: unfortunately it bears fruit only once.

Because beauty, twin of truth, pure art, enemy of artifice, is strength and grace in simplicity.

The years, which go by, are killing us without mercy.

He who loves invents the pains in which he lives: And, instead of calming the pains, he seeks a new sorrow with which to live them.

And I look at the deserted sky, and I see the sad ocean, and I contemplate the place where you disappeared, bathed in the nascent afterglow.

It’s already dawn, give me coffee, paper and quill, I’ll write.

But your soul remained, free from misfortune, sweetly dreaming, the delights of the moon, among the flowers, now, another flower shines, keeping in the corolla a memory of you.

The greatest baseness cannot be exchanged for earth for heaven; And it elevates the heart of a man to be a man always and, in the greatest purity, to stay on earth and humanly love.

What to do to be like the happy ones? Love!

Fear is the father of belief.

I know of no higher glory than the glory of one who loves!

Only those who love can have heard, able to hear and understand stars.

Verses and loves I smothered silently, without enjoying them in a sincere explosion… Ah! One hundred more lives! With what ardor I wanted more to live, more to grieve and to love singing!

Your smile, child, falls on my martyrdom, like a flash of hope, like a blessing from God!

Wait at least for the dawn! Your alcove smells like a nest… And look how dark there is outside!

The love that you carry by your side, where does it lead you, that you enter covered in darkness and leave covered in light?