Portuguese tradition rarely manifests itself in the pure desire for glory and in the grandiloquent glorification of heroic virtues; on the contrary, it seems to express itself in the discreet use of those virtues. Camões found the right tone to formulate that tradition precisely in the final stanzas of his epic, in which he counsels King Sebastian to favor and promote the most experienced, who know “how, when, and where things fit,” and exalts military discipline, which learns by assiduous practice—“seeing, dealing, struggling”—not by fantasy—“dreaming, imagining or studying.”



Excerpt from: "Roots of Brazil" by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda.