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About this quote

What does it mean?
A condemned prisoner celebrates trivial comforts as liberation, highlighting human ignorance of true fate.
In plain terms
The rooster sings about freedom while waiting to die.
What can you take from it?
Small comforts can blind us to larger dangers.

Where it applies

  • ignoring doom
  • political metaphor
  • comforting oneself

Putting it to work

  • critiquing false hope
  • writing irony
  • analyzing human behavior

Questions to consider

  • Is freedom defined by reality or belief?
  • Why do we celebrate small things?

Another view

It assumes the fate is known and ignores subjective experiences of contentment.

More from Fernando Pessoa

  1. It's been a long time since I've been me.

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  2. What's most worthless about dreams is that everybody has them.

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  3. 'Any road', said Carlyle, 'even this road to Entepfuhl, will take you to the end of the world'. But the Entepfuhl road, if taken in its entirety, and to the en…

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