Quotes About Reflection

Little has happened to me in my lifetime, but I have read much.

Filosóficamente, la memoria no es menos prodigiosa que la adivinación del futuro; el día de mañana está más cerca de nosotros que la travesía del Mar Rojo por los hebreos, que, sin embargo, recordamos.

A volte penso che i buoni lettori siano cigni ancor più tenebrosi e rari dei buoni autori.

What is past is what is real.

En Alejandría se ha dicho que sólo es incapaz de una culpa quien ya la cometió y ya se arrepintió; para estar libre de un error, agreguemos, conviene haberlo profesado

But I will relate what happened with absolute honesty; that, perhaps, will help me understand it. After all, 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.

Night is pleasing to us because, like memory, it erases idle details. A New Refutation of Time

La ya avanzada edad me ha enseñado la resignación de ser Borges

Mi memoria, señor, es como vaciadero de basuras.

I'm alone and nobody is in the mirror

A veces en las tardes una cara Nos mira desde el fondo de un espejo; El arte debe ser como ese espejo Que nos revela nuestra propia cara. (At times in the evenings a face Looks at us out of the depths of a mirror; Art should be like that mirror Which reveals to us our own face.)

There is no intellectual exercise that is not ultimately pointless. - Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

In my own case, the process is more or less unvarying. I begin with the glimpse of a form, a kind of remote island, which will eventually be a story or a poem. I see the end and I see the beginning, but not what is in between. That is gradually revealed to me, when the stars or chance are propitious. More than once, I have had to retrace my steps by way of the shadows.

Being with you or without you is how I measure my time.

Sleepless, obsessed, almost joyful, I reflected on how nothing is less material than money, insamuch as any coin whatsoever (a twenty-centavo piece, let us say) is, strictly speaking, a repertory of possible futures. Money is abstract, I repeated, money is future time. It can be an evening in the suburbs, it can be the music of Brahms, it can be chess, it can be coffee, it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold.

kitapl?k sahibi tüm insanlar gibi aurelianus da sahip olduÄŸu bütün kitaplar? hakk?n? vererek okumam?? olmakla suçlard? kendini.bu tart??ma ona kitapl???n?n raflar?nda ihmal edildikleri için ay?plar gibi duran birçok kitab? gözden geçirme f?rsat? verdi.(Çev.:Tomris Uyar)

was wir sind, ist unsere eigene Erinnerung, wir sind jenes trügerische Museum veränderlicher Formen, jener Haufen Spiegelscherben

The years pass and I've told this story so many times I no longer know whether I remember it as it was or whether it's only my words I'm remembering.

I still hold two images of the ranch – the one I brought with me and the one my eyes finally saw.

I will pause to consider this eternity from which the subsequent ones derive.

But then, all our lives we postpone everything that can be postponed; perhaps we all have the certainty, deep inside, that we are immortal, and that sooner or later every man will do everything, know all there is to know.

I Fear the mirror may disclose The true, unvarnished visage of my soul, Bruised by shadows, black and blue with guilt- The face God sees, that men perhaps see too.

But I will relate what happened with absolute honesty; that, perhaps, will help me understand it. After all, when one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a person that observes and narrates it and no longer the person that performed it.

Seré todos o nadie. Seré el otro Que sin saberlo soy, el que ha mirado Ese otro sueño, mi vigilia. La juzga, Resignado y sonriente.