Luís de Camões quotes

Love is a fire that burns unseen. (Luís de Camões)
To be a lion among sheep, 'tis poor.
Luís de Camões
The last words which I uttered on board of the vessel were those of Scipio-'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones'.
Luís de Camões
I'll sing a song of love so sweet, so blessed with harmonious sounds, so true to the name of love (with two thousand examples), it will enflame even those with dead hearts in their chest.
Luís de Camões
Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary, where live his little span of life secure? and 'scape of Heaven serene th' indignant storms that launch their thunders at us earthen worms?
Luís de Camões
Whoever, Lady, sees plain and clear the lovely essence of your fair eyes and doesn't from seeing them go blind hasn't paid your looks their due.
Luís de Camões
Nor do I sing for courtesy's sake with a taste for praising, but to make pure truths known about my former times. Would to God they were mere dreams.
Luís de Camões
To many fame comes too late.
Luís de Camões
This is my happy land, my home, my pride.
Luís de Camões
Cease all, whose actions ancient bards expressed: A brighter valour rises in the West.
Luís de Camões
My song shall spread where ever there are men, If wit and art will so much guide my pen. (Luís de Camões)
The lover becomes the thing he loves By virtue of much imagining; Since what I long for is already in me, The act of longing should be enough.
Luís de Camões
Since it gives me so much bliss to give you everything I can The more I pay you, the more I owe.
Luís de Camões
Right honest studies my career can show with long experience blent as best beseems, and genius here presented for thy view;- gifts, that conjoined appertain to few.
Luís de Camões
That more would he serve, if life Were not so short for love so long.
Luís de Camões
For serving thee an arm to arms addressed; for singing thee a soul the Muses raise.
Luís de Camões
Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed, such a representation of the disappointments of fortune? And I, as if she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party; for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils.
Luís de Camões
I am ending the course of my life, but the world will bear witness how I have loved my country; I have returned not only to die on her bosom, but to die with her!
Luís de Camões
They now went sailing in the ocean vast...
Luís de Camões
Thou, only thou, pure Love...
Luís de Camões
No star from above nor flower in the field seems to me as fair as the one I love. (Luís de Camões)
But an old man of venerable look (Standing upon the shore amongst the crowds) His eyes fixed upon us (on ship-board), shook His head three times, overcast with sorrow's clouds: And (straining his voice more, than well could brook His aged lungs: it rattled in our shrouds) Out of a science, practice did attest, Let fly these words from an oraculous breast:O glory of commanding! O vain thirst Of that same empty nothing we call fame!
Luís de Camões
[But] to sing of your face, a composition in itself sublime and marvelous, I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art.
Luís de Camões
[Ah, Love...] which formed I don't know where, That came I don't know how, and hurts I don't know why.
Luís de Camões
Love is a fire that burns unseen, A wound that aches yet isn't felt, An always discontent contentment, A pain that rages without hurting,A longing for nothing but to long, A loneliness in the midst of people, A never feeling pleased when pleased, A passion that gains when lost in thought.It's being enslaved of your own free will; It's counting your defeat a victory; It's staying loyal to your killer.But if it's so self-contradictory, How can Love, when Love chooses, Bring human hearts into sympathy?
Luís de Camões