Jorge Luis Borges Quotes

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.

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

Cada vez que leo algo que han escrito contra mi, no sólo comparto el sentimiento sino que pienso que yo mismo podría hacer mejor el trabajo, quizá debería aconsejar a los aspirantes a enemigos que me envíen sus criticas de antemano, con la seguridad de que recibirán toda mi ayuda y mi apoyo. Hasta he deseado secretamente escribir con seudónimo, una larga invectiva contra mí mismo.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.

i walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.

Only one thing is more admirable than the admirable reply of the Saxon king: that an Icelander, a man of the lineage of the vanquished, has perpetuated the reply. It is as if a Carthaginian had bequeathed to us the memory of the exploit of Regulus. Saxo Grammaticus wrote with justification in his Gesta Danorum: "The men of Thule [Iceland] are very fond of learning and of recording the history of all peoples and they are equally pleased to reveal the excellences of others or of themselves." Not the day when the Saxon said the words, but the day when an enemy perpetuated them, was the historic date. A date that is a prophecy of something still in the future: the day when races and nations will be cast into oblivion, and the solidarity of all mankind will be established.

Time carries him as the river carries A leaf in the downstream water. No matter. The enchanted one insists And shapes God with delicate geometry. Since his illness, since his birth, He goes on constructing God with the word. The mightiest love was granted him Love that does not expect to be loved.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

From my weakness, I drew strength that never left me.

The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.

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.

In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.

"Maybe this crime belongs to the history of Jewish superstitions," murmmured Lönnrot. "Like Christianity," the editor put in.

Time is the tiger that devours me, but I am that tiger.