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About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker pities the unaware masses but loves them for their simple, vegetable-like existence.
In plain terms
I feel bad for people who don't know they are unhappy, but I still love them.
What can you take from it?
Ignorance of suffering can be pitiable yet endearing.

Where it applies

  • observing others
  • feeling isolated
  • accepting human nature

Putting it to work

  • describing empathy
  • social observation
  • writing character traits

Questions to consider

  • Is ignorance bliss or tragedy?
  • Can you love what you pity?

Another view

It implies a superiority complex in the observer of others' ignorance.

More from Fernando Pessoa

  1. All pleasure is a vice, for seeking pleasure is what everybody does in life, and the only dark vice is doing what everybody does.

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  2. For the moment being, given that we live in society, the only duty of superior men is to reduce to a minimum their participation in the tribe's life. Not to re…

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  3. Sailing is necessary, living is not necessary.

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