Trago dentro do meu coração, Como num cofre que se não pode fechar de cheio, Todos os lugares onde estive, Todos os portos a que cheguei, Todas as pa… - Fernando Pessoa

Escravos cardíacos das estrelas,
Conquistámos todo o mundo antes de nos levantar da cama;
Mas acordámos e ele é opaco,
Levantámo-nos e ele é alheio,
Saímos de casa e ele é a terra inteira,
Mais o sistema solar e a Via Láctea e o Indefinido.

No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it. Collective thought is stupid because it's collective. Nothing passes into the realm of the collective without leaving at the border — like a toll — most of the intelligence it contained.

In youth we're twofold. Our innate intelligence, which may be considerable, coexists with the stupidity of our inexperience, which forms a second, lesser intelligence. Only later on do the two unite. That's why youth always blunders - not because of its inexperience, but because of its non-unity.

Today the only course left for the man of superior intelligence is abdication.

It could have been any number of things: hardship, grief or simply the suffering born of the indifference that comes from having suffered too much.