Quotes from Jorge Luís Borges

Tlön será un laberinto, pero es un laberinto urdido por hombres, un laberinto destinado a que lo descifren los hombres.

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal

It will be said that the conclusion no doubt preceded its proofs. But what man can content himself with seeking out proofs for a thing that not even he himself believes in, or whose teaching he cares naught for?

On lit ce qu'on aime, tandis qu'on écrit pas ce qu'on aimerait écrire, mais ce qu'on est capable d'écrire.

La creencia en ell Zahir es islámica...Zahir en árabe, quiere decir notorio, visible; en tal sentido, es uno de los noventa y nueve nombres de Dios; la plebe, en tierras musulmanas, lo dice de los seres o cosas que tienen la terrible virtud de ser inolvidables y cuya imagen acaba por enloquecer a la gente

I felt what we always feel when someone dies–the sad awareness, now futile, of how little it would have cost us to have been more loving. One forgets that one is a dead man conversing with dead men.

Un idioma es una tradición, un modo de sentir la realidad, no un arbitrario repertorio de símbolos. (A language is a tradition, a way of grasping reality, not an arbitrary assemblage of symbols.)

De chico, yo solía maravillarme de que las letras de un volumen cerrado no se mezclaran y perdieran en el decurso de la noche.

some preached asceticism, others licentiousness. All preached confusion.

Il libro non è un ente chiuso alla comunicazione: è una relazione, è un asse di innumerevoli relazioni.

Cada lenguaje es una tradición, cada palabra, un símbolo; es baladí lo que un innovador es capaz de alterar...

Yo, que me figuraba el Paraíso bajo la especie de una biblioteca.

Nuestros actos prosiguen su camino, Que no conoce término. Maté a mi rey para que Shakespeare Urdiera su tragedia.

Aquí también esa desconocida Y ansiosa y breve cosa que es la vida. (Here too the never understood, Anxious, and brief affair that is life.)

A classic book is a book which generations of men, driven by various reasons, read with that same initial fervor and that same mysterious loyalty.

Non c'è nulla di antico sotto il sole. Tutto accade per la prima volta, ma in un modo eterno. Chi legge le mie parole sta inventandole.

All men, in the vertiginous moment of coitus, are the same man. All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.

I reread these negative remarks and realize that I do not know whether music can despair of music or marble of marble. I do know that literature is an art that can foresee the time when it will be silenced, an art that can become inflamed with its own virtue, fall in love with its own decline, and court its own demise.

Toda ficción es una impostura; lo que importa es sentir que ha sido soñada sinceramente.

And life is, I am sure, made of poetry. Poetry is not alien--poetry is, as we will see, lurking round the corner. It may spring on us at any moment.

In 1883, an earthquake that lasted ninety seconds shook the south of Italy. In that earthquake, he lost his parents and his sister; he himself was buried by rubble. Two or three hours later, he was rescued. To ward off total despair, he resolved to think about the Universe - a general procedure among the unfortunate, and sometimes a balm.

Lo recuerdo (yo no tengo derecho a pronunciar ese verbo sagrado, sólo un hombre en la tierra tuvo derecho y ese hombre ha muerto) con una oscura pasionaria en la mano, viéndola como nadie la ha visto, aunque la mirara desde el crepúsculo del día hasta el de la noche, toda una vida entera.

Being with you, and not being with you, is the only way I have to measure time.

Vivimos descubriendo y olvidando esa dulce costumbre de la noche. Hay que mirarla bien. Puede ser última. (Our life is spent discovering and forgetting that gentle habit of the night. Take a good look. It could be the last.)