Quotes from Jorge Luís Borges

pensó, mientras alisaba el negro pelaje, que aquel contacto era ilusorio y que estaban como separados por un cristal, porque el hombre vive en el tiempo, en la sucesión, y el mágico animal, en la actualidad, en la eternidad del instante.

Reality may be too complex for oral transmission; legend recreates it in a manner which is only accidentally false and which allows it to go about the world, from mouth to mouth.

El temor de lo crasamente infinito, del mero espacio, de la mera materia, tocó por un instante a Averroes. Miró el simétrico jardín; se supo envejecido, inútil, irreal.

Todas las teorías son legítimas y ninguna tiene importancia. Lo que importa es lo que se hace con ellas.

Esos recuerdos no eran simples; cada imagen visual estaba ligada a sensaciones musculares, térmicas, etcétera.

L'esecutore di un'impresa atroce immagini di averla già compiuta, si imponga un futuro che sia irrevocabile come il passato

distance. I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.

Like alchemists // who looked for the philosopher's stone // in elusive quicksilver, // I shall make ordinary words - // the marked cards of the sharper, the people's coinage - // yield up their magic which was theirs // when Thor was inspiration and eruption, // thunder and worship. …

Tal vez quiso decir que el mundo visible se da entero en cada representación, de igual manera que la voluntad, según Schopenhauer, se da entera en cada sujeto. Los cabalistas entendieron que el hombre es un microcosmo, un simbólico espejo del universo; todo, según Tennyson, lo sería. Todo, hasta el intolerable Zahir.

I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.

No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.

In fact I'm in too much of a mental muddle to know where I am - an idealist or not. I'm a mere man of letters, and I do what I can with those subjects.

When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

Time can't be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different.

Censorship is the mother of metaphor.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music.

I have no personal system of philosophy. I never attempt to do that. I am merely a man of letters.

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

No one is a poet from eight to twelve and from two to six. Whoever is a poet is one always, and continually assaulted by poetry.

The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry.

I don't think there's any essential difference, at least for me, between writing poetry and writing prose.

The future is inevitable and precise, but it may not occur. God lurks in the gaps.