Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges ([x.xe lwis b.xs]) (August 24, 1899 June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer who is considered to be one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. Best-known in the English speaking world for his short stories and fictive essays, Borges was also a poet, critic, and man of letters.

16 Quotes

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

Jorge Luis Borges

Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.

Jorge Luis Borges

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.

Jorge Luis Borges

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.

Jorge Luis Borges

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Jorge Luis Borges

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Jorge Luis Borges

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.

Jorge Luis Borges

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

Jorge Luis Borges

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

Jorge Luis Borges

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Jorge Luis Borges

De ene literatuur verschilt van de andere niet zozeer door de tekst dan wel door de manier waarop zij gelezen wordt.

Jorge Luis Borges

Een boek dat niet zijn contraboek bevat is onvolledig.

Jorge Luis Borges

Een schrijver zou nog een keer moeten leven om te zien of hij gewaardeerd wordt.

Jorge Luis Borges

Klassiek is niet een boek dat per se die of die verdiensten bezit; het is een boek dat de mensengeneraties, door verschillende redenen gedreven, lezen met tevoren vaststaande geestdrift en met een mysterieuze loyaliteit.

Jorge Luis Borges

Ik heb me altijd ingebeeld dat het paradijs een soort bibliotheek zal zijn.

Jorge Luis Borges