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