From the books on our shelf · Brazilian Portuguese
Portuguese quotes from Brazilian classics
Lines from Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Artur de Azevedo, Júlia Lopes de Almeida and Monteiro Lobato, chosen by Verbeto from the books on our shelf, each with an English translation and audio.
Every quote is checked word for word against the original, and you can read any of them in context, in the book, free.
Quote of the week
“Todos os homens devem ter uma lira no coração, — ou não sejam homens.”Every man should have a lyre in his heart — or he isn't a man.
Life
“Digam o que quizerem dizer os hypocondriacos: a vida é uma cousa doce.”Say what the hypochondriacs like: life is a sweet thing.
“Que profundas que são as molas da vida!”How deep the springs of life are!
“Viver somente, não te peço mais nada.”Only to live; I ask nothing more of you.
Brás Cubas, in his delirium, pleading with Nature.
“Quem me poz no coração este amor da vida, senão tu?”Who put this love of life in my heart, if not you?
“Os outros homens leram da vida um capítulo, tu leste o livro inteiro.”Other men read one chapter of life; you read the whole book.
“…A descrição da vida não vale a sensação da vida…”Describing life is worth less than feeling it.
“Reagia a mocidade, era preciso viver.”Youth fought back; one had to live.
“Todos nós havemos de morrer; basta estarmos vivos.”We all have to die; it's enough to be alive.
“Viver não é a mesma coisa que morrer; assim o afirmam todos os joalheiros deste mundo, gente muito vista na gramática.”Living is not the same as dying; so say all the jewellers of this world, people well versed in grammar.
Machado's irony: an obvious truth, credited to the wrong experts.
“Senhores vivos, não há nada tão incomensurável como o desdém dos finados.”Ladies and gentlemen of the living: nothing is as immeasurable as the disdain of the dead.
The novel is narrated by a dead man.
“…Não tive filhos, não transmitti a nenhuma creatura o legado da nossa miseria.…”I had no children; I passed on to no creature the legacy of our misery.
The last line of Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas.
Time and age
“Matamos o tempo; o tempo nos enterra.”We kill time; time buries us.
One of Brás Cubas's maxims.
“Quando o tempo trouxe o sossego, trouxe também a estima.”When time brought calm, it brought affection too.
“A idade transforma-nos tal qual a morte.”Age changes us just as death does.
“A velhice ridicula é, porventura, a mais triste e derradeira sorpresa da natureza humana.”A ridiculous old age is perhaps the saddest and last surprise of human nature.
“Guarda as tuas cartas da juventude!”Keep the letters of your youth!
Love
“Manso e manso, entrou-lhe o amor no coração.”Slowly, quietly, love found its way into the heart.
“Como daí chegaram ao amor, não o soube ele nunca.”How they got from there to love, he never knew.
“Era a nossa sorte amar-nos; se assim não fora, como explicariamos a valsa e o resto?”It was our fate to love each other; otherwise, how would we explain the waltz and the rest?
“O teu coração pertence-te: dispõe dele à vontade.”Your heart belongs to you: do with it as you wish.
“Em tudo o Amor, sempre o Amor!”Love in everything, always Love!
“Marcela amou-me durante quinze meses e onze contos de réis; nada menos.”Marcela loved me for fifteen months and eleven contos de réis; nothing less.
Contos de réis were the old currency: love, measured in money.
“…a amizade era, em mim, desde muito, a simples sentinela do amor…”in me, friendship had long been nothing but love's sentry.
“Pergunte ao seu coração, respondeu ela.”"Ask your heart," she replied.
The fortune-teller's answer in A Cartomante.
“A gente nunca é o primeiro amante!”You're never the first lover!
Hope and saudade
“Que é a saudade senão uma ironia do tempo e da fortuna?”What is saudade but an irony of time and fortune?
“Mau, nada de ironias; olhe que a ironia não faz boa cama com a saudade.”Now, no irony; irony and saudade don't make good bedfellows.
“…tudo morre, até a esperança…”everything dies, even hope.
“…a culpa foi da esperança, que é uma planta daninha, que me comeu o lugar de outras plantas melhores.…”it was hope's fault: a weed that took the place of better plants.
“Mas a esperança, demônio de olhos verdes, pediu-lhe que ficasse, e ficou.”But hope, a green-eyed demon, asked him to stay, and he stayed.
“Porque levo na minha bolsa os bens e os males, e o maior de todos, a esperança, consolação dos homens.”Because I carry in my bag good things and bad, and the greatest of all: hope, mankind's consolation.
Pandora speaking, in Brás Cubas's delirium.
People
“Os homens são assim; não acreditam em nada.”Men are like that; they believe in nothing.
“HAMLET observa a Horácio que há mais cousas no céu e na terra do que sonha a nossa filosofia.”Hamlet tells Horatio there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
The opening line of A Cartomante.
“Nada atrai e aterra ao mesmo tempo o homem como o desconhecido.”Nothing draws us in and terrifies us at the same time like the unknown.
“Cada qual tem o ar que Deus lhe deu.”Each of us has the air God gave us.
“Só o homem guerreia o homem.”Only man makes war on man.
“O mundo era estreito para Alexandre; um desvão de telhado é o infinito para as andorinhas.”The world was too small for Alexander; a corner under the roof is infinity to swallows.
“Todos os homens devem ter uma lira no coração, — ou não sejam homens.”Every man should have a lyre in his heart — or he isn't a man.
“Crê em ti; mas nem sempre duvides dos outros.”Believe in yourself, but don't always doubt others.
One of Brás Cubas's maxims.
“A estima que passa de chapeu na cabeça não diz nada á alma; mas a indifferença que corteja deixa-lhe uma deleitosa impressão.”Esteem that walks past with its hat on says nothing to the soul; but indifference that bows leaves a delightful impression.
“O desprezado dos homens governará os homens.”The one men despise will govern men.
“Onde me espetam, fico.”Wherever they stick me, I stay.
The pin speaking, in Machado's fable of the needle and the thread.
Wisdom
“Supporta-se com paciencia a colica do proximo.”One bears one's neighbour's stomach ache with great patience.
One of Brás Cubas's maxims.
“…Não te irrites se te pagarem mal um beneficio: antes cair das nuvens, que de um terceiro andar.…”Don't be upset if a kindness is badly repaid: better to fall from the clouds than from a third floor.
One of Brás Cubas's maxims. "Cair das nuvens" means to be taken by surprise.
“Um cocheiro philosopho costumava dizer que o gosto da carruagem seria diminuto, se todos andassem de carruagem.”A philosophical coachman used to say that riding in a carriage would be little pleasure if everyone rode in one.
One of Brás Cubas's maxims.
“Deus te livre, leitor, de uma idéa fixa; antes um argueiro, antes uma trave no olho.”God save you, reader, from a fixed idea; better a speck in your eye, better a beam.
“Tolera-se uma superstição gratuita ou barata; é insupportavel a que leva uma parte da vida.”A free or cheap superstition can be tolerated; one that costs part of your life is unbearable.
“A verdade ignota aos homens é o delírio de quem a anuncia.”A truth unknown to men is madness in whoever announces it.
“A glória não paga nada, e extingue-se.”Glory pays nothing, and it fades.
“Lá disse o outro que a verdade nem sempre é verossímil.”As someone once said, the truth isn't always believable.
“Quem não pode perder não joga!”If you can't afford to lose, don't play!
“Onde uma vida cuspiu lama, outra vida porá uma auréola.”Where one life spat mud, another will place a halo.
“…O mundo passageiro não pode entender o mundo eterno…”The passing world cannot understand the eternal one.
Money
“Eu nada peço, a não ser dinheiro; dinheiro sim, porque é necessario comer, e as casas de pasto não fiam.”I ask for nothing but money; money, yes, because one must eat, and eating houses don't give credit.
Quincas Borba, as a beggar.
“Minha camarada, a vida não se arranja á toa; não se come vento.”My friend, life doesn't sort itself out; you can't eat the wind.
“…nem divinizar o dinheiro, nem também bani-lo; não vamos crer que ele dá tudo, mas reconheçamos que dá alguma cousa e até muita cousa…”neither worship money nor banish it; let's not believe it gives everything, but admit it gives something, even a great deal.
“Poder-se ha ser feliz sendo-se pobre?...”Can one be happy and poor?...
Brazil
“É sempre doutor em qualquer cousa; pode ser mesmo engenheiro hidráulico ou eletricista.”He's always a "doctor" of something; he might even be a hydraulic engineer or an electrician.
Lima Barreto mocking Brazil's love of titles: anyone with a degree is "doutor".
“…Quem é doutô sabe um pouco de tudo…”Whoever's a doctor knows a bit of everything.
"Doutô" is "doutor" as it's spoken.
“Se acontece alguém escrever uma crônica feliz, zás, banquete, retrato e nome nos jornais.”If someone happens to write a lucky column, bang: a banquet, a portrait, and their name in the papers.
“Meto por aí, furo daqui, furo dacolá, e arranjo sempre alguma coisa com que agüentar a vida!”I poke about, dig here, dig there, and always find something to get by on!
The jeitinho brasileiro in one sentence.
“Chamaram diversos intérpretes, ninguém o entendia.”They called in several interpreters; nobody understood him.
From "O homem que sabia javanês", the man who pretended to know Javanese.
“Cogitei largamente, e não achei nada.”I thought long and hard, and came up with nothing.
“Tudo aquillo não passara dum lindo sonho...”It had all been nothing but a lovely dream...
From Monteiro Lobato's Narizinho, a classic of Brazilian childhood.
* Original spelling: the book keeps its 19th-century spelling (elle for ele, cousa for coisa), and the quote is given exactly as written.
Questions
What is the most famous quote by Machado de Assis?
Probably “Ao vencedor, as batatas!” (To the winner, the potatoes!), from Quincas Borba, his ironic summing-up of a world where life is a fight over food. From Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, the last line is just as well known: “Não tive filhos, não transmiti a nenhuma criatura o legado da nossa miséria” (I had no children; I passed on to no creature the legacy of our misery).
Who was Machado de Assis?
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908) is Brazil's greatest writer: a novelist, short-story writer and poet from Rio de Janeiro, the grandson of freed slaves, who founded the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His best-known novels are Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas and Dom Casmurro, and his complete works are free from Brazil's Ministry of Education at machado.mec.gov.br.
Are these quotes accurate?
Yes. Each one is taken word for word from the book on our shelf, checked automatically against the text every time the site is built, and links to the paragraph it comes from, so you can read it in context. The English translations are our own.
What's the difference between a quote and a saying?
A quote has an author and a source: these are lines somebody wrote, in a particular book. A saying (ditado) belongs to nobody: “Quem não tem cão caça com gato” is just something Brazilians say. For those, see our guide to Brazilian sayings.
More from the shelf: free Portuguese books, and Brazilian sayings.