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Jorge Luis Borges

156 quotes

“If the pages of this book contain some successful verse, the reader must excuse me the discourtesy of having usurped it first. Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance that you should be the reader of these exercises and I their author.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To the Reader" ["A quien leyere"], preface to Fervor of Buenos Aires [Fervor de Buenos Aires] (1923)
“Wilde was not a great poet nor a consummate prose writer. He was a very astute Irishman who encompassed in epigrams an esthetic credo which others before him scattered in the space of long pages. He was an enfant terrible.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Poem by Oscar Wilde" (1925) An essay on Wilde and his Ballad of Reading Gaol.
“That one individual should awaken in another memories that belong to still a third is an obvious paradox.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Evaristo Carriego (1930) Ch. 2
“It is worth remembering that every writer begins with a naively physical notion of what art is. A book for him or her is not an expression or a series of expressions, but literally a volume, a prism with six rectangular sides made of thin sheets of papers which should include a cover, an inside cover, an epigraph in italics, a preface, nine or ten parts with some verses at the beginning, a table of contents, an ex libris with an hourglass and a Latin phrase, a brief list of errata, some blank pages, a colophon and a publication notice: objects that are known to constitute the art of writing.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Evaristo Carriego (1930) Ch. 3
“Reading … is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Universal History of Infamy [Historia universal de la infamia] (1935) Preface
“The vast ineptitude of his pretense would be a convincing proof that this was no fraud.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“Mir Bahadur Ali is, as we have seen, incapable of evading the most vulgar of art's temptations: that of being a genius.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (1935)
“Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The masked dyer Hakim of Merv" [El tintorero enmascarado Hakim de Merv] Universal History of Infamy (1935); also translated as "Hakim, Masked Dyer of Merv" (review of "Hakim, Masked Dyer of Merv")
“The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998). Cf. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Library of Babel" ["La Biblioteca de Babel"] (1941), tr. James E. Irby; First lines
“There is no combination of characters one can make — dhcmrlchtdj, for example — that the divine Library has not foreseen and that in one or more of its secret tongues does not hide a terrible significance. There is no syllable one can speak that is not filled with tenderness and terror, that is not, in one of those languages, the mighty name of a god.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Library of Babel" ["La Biblioteca de Babel"] (1941)
“I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the "vain and superstitious habit" of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines on the palms of one's hand.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Library of Babel" (1941); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Library of Babel" (1941)
“El original es infiel a la traducción.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On William Thomas Beckford's Vathek (1782) and Samuel Henley's 1786 translation, in "Sobre el Vathek de William Beckford" (1943)
“I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending out post cards. . . I saw the oblique shadow of some ferns on the floor of a hot-house; I saw tigers, emboli, bison, ground swells and armies; I saw all the ants in the world.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Aleph" ["El Aleph"] (1945)
“Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters (c.1946)
“There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death. What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Immortal", § IV, in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Immortal" (1949)
“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.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Immortal" (1949)
“Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz", in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“Besides, time, which despoils castles, enriches verses . . . Time broadens the scope of verses and I know of some which, like music, are everything for all men.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Averroës' Search" (1949)
“There's no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ibn-Hakim Al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth", in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“The minotaur more than justifies the existence of the labyrinth.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ibn-Hakim Al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth", in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“His many years had reduced and polished him the way water smooths and polishes a stone or generations of men polish a proverb.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Man on the Threshold", in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998). Cf. "The South" in Ficciones (1944)
“I would define the baroque as that style that deliberately exhausts (or tries to exhaust) its own possibilities, and that borders on self-caricature. [...] The baroque is the final stage in all art, when art flaunts and squanders its resources.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Universal History of Iniquity, preface to the 1954 edition; tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Deutsches Requiem" as translated by Julian Palley (1958)
“Villari took no notice of them because the idea of a coincidence between art and reality was alien to him. Unlike people who read novels, he never saw himself as a character in a work of art.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Waiting" translated by James E. Irby (1959)
“Years of solitude had taught him that, in one's memory, all days tend to be the same, but that there is not a day, not even in jail or in the hospital, which does not bring surprises, which is not a translucent network of minimal surprises.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Waiting" translated by James E. Irby (1959)
“Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Partial Magic in the Quixote", Labyrinths (1964)
“The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)
“Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)
“Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)
“Arrasado el jardín, profanados los cálices y las aras, entraron a caballo los hunos en la biblioteca monástica y rompieron los libros incomprensibles y los vituperaron y los quemaron, acaso temerosos de que las letras encubrieran blasfemias contra su dios, que era una cimitarra de hierro.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to Dr. Brodie's Report [El informe de Brodie] (1970)
“He sospechado alguna vez que la única cosa sin misterio es la felicidad, porque se justifica por sí sola.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Unworthy", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dr. Brodie's Report [El informe de Brodie] (1970)
“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.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Juan Muraña", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today. Fortunes were smaller then as well.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Elderly Lady", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“We all think that fate has dealt us a wretched sort of lot in life, and that others must be better. [...] I presume that in the heaven of the Blessèd there are those who believe that the advantages of that locale are much exaggerated by theologists, who have never been there themselves.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Duel", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“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.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guayaquil", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Threatened", The Book of Sand [El Libro de arena] (1975)
“El hecho ocurrió en el mes de febrero de 1969, al norte de Boston, en Cambridge. No lo escribí inmediatamente porque mi primer propósito fue olvidarlo, para no perder la razón.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The event took place in the month of February of 1969, to the north of Boston, in Cambridge. I didn't write it down right away because my first intention was to forget it, so as not to lose my mind.
“I do believe that my country is now joyfully emerging from the swamp. I believe that we deserve to leave the swamp we have been in. And we are leaving it thanks to the work of the Sword. Here, you have already emerged from the swamp. And so Chile, this region, this country, is both a long country and an honorable Sword.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the occasion of receiving a medal from General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, referencing Jorge Rafael Videla's coup d'état (1976).
“Ser conservador es una forma de ser escéptico.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Revista Extra (July 1976)
“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Divine Comedy" (1977)
“Films are even stranger, for what we are seeing are not disguised people but photographs of disguised people, and yet we believe them while the film is being shown.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Comparing film and stage theatre in "The Divine Comedy" (1977)
“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.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poetry" (1977)
“The aesthetic event is something as evident, as immediate, as indefinable as love, the taste of fruit, of water. We feel poetry as we feel the closeness of a woman, or as we feel a mountain or a bay. If we feel it immediately, why dilute it with other words, which no doubt will be weaker than our feelings?”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poetry" (the fifth of Borges' seven conferences of 1977 in Teatro Coliseo, in Buenos Aires, later corrected and published in 1980 as a book, Siete noches/Seven Nights) (blog about Jorge Luis Borges (in Spanish)
“There are people who barely feel poetry, and they are generally dedicated to teaching it.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poetry" (1977)
“La duda es uno de los nombres de la inteligencia.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Diccionario privado de Jorge Luis Borges (1979) edited by Blas Matamoro