Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges

About Jorge Luis Borges:

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature. His work embraces the "character of unreality in all literature". His best-known books, Ficciones (Fictions) and El Aleph (The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, fictional writers, philosophy, and religion. Literary critics have described Borges as Latin America's monumental writer.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We are ignorant of the meaning of the dragon in the same way that we are ignorant of the meaning of the universe; but there is something in the dragon’s image that fits man’s imagination, and this accounts for the dragon’s appearance in differe...

Jorge Luis Borges

We are as ignorant of the meaning of the dragon as we are of the meaning of the universe.

Jorge Luis Borges

Por lo demás, la literatura no es otra cosa que un sueño dirigido.

Jorge Luis Borges

Sabemos que el pasado, el presente y el porvenir ya están, minucia por minucia, en la profética mente de Dios, en Su eternidad; lo extraño es que los hombres puedan mirar, indefinidamente, hacia atrás pero no hacia adelante.

Jorge Luis Borges

I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.

Jorge Luis Borges

... no se puede medir el tiempo por días, como el dinero por centavos o pesos, porque los pesos son iguales y cada día es distinto y tal vez cada hora.

Jorge Luis Borges

Dormir, según se sabe, es el mas secreto de nuestros actos. Le dedicamos una tercera parte de nuestra vida y no lo comprendemos. Para algunos no es otra cosa que el eclipse de nuestra vigilia; para otros, un estado más complejo, que abarca a un tie...

Jorge Luis Borges

He intentado, no se con que fortuna, la redacción de cuentos directos. No me atrevo a afirmar que son sencillos; no hay en la tierra, una sola página, una sola palabra, que lo sea, ya que todas postulan el universo, cuyo más notorio atributo es la...

Jorge Luis Borges

How can we manage to illuminate the pathos of our lives?

Jorge Luis Borges

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.

Jorge Luis Borges

Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.

Jorge Luis Borges

Emma dropped the paper. Her first impression was of a weak feeling in her stomach and in her knees; then of blind guilt, of unreality, of coldness, of fear; then she wished that it were already the next day. Immediately afterwards she realized that t...

Jorge Luis Borges

He was very religious; he believed that he had a secret pact with God which exempted him from doing good in exchange for prayers and piety.

Jorge Luis Borges

So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature.

Jorge Luis Borges

Tearing money is an impiety, like throwing away bread.

Jorge Luis Borges

But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over.

Jorge Luis Borges

I prayed aloud, less to plead for divine favor than to intimidate the tribe with articulate speech.

Jorge Luis Borges

Ogni linguaggio è un alfabeto di simboli il cui uso presuppone un passato che gli interlocutori condividono; come trasmettere agli altri l'infinito Aleph, che la mia timorosa memoria a stento abbraccia?

Jorge Luis Borges

...vidi i resti atroci di quanto deliziosamente era stata Beatriz Viterbo, vidi la circolazione del mio oscuro sangue, vidi il meccanismo dell'amore e la modificazione della morte, vidi l'Aleph, da tutti i punti, vidi nell'Aleph la terra, e nella ter...

Jorge Luis Borges

There are those who seek the love of a woman to forget her, to not think about her.

Jorge Luis Borges

Author Bio

  • NameJorge Luis Borges
  • DescriptionArgentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature.
  • AliasesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges; Jorge Luis Borges
  • BornAugust 24, 1899
  • DiedJune 14, 1986
  • CountryArgentina
  • ProfessionTranslator; Poet; Linguist; Librarian; Literary Critic; Screenwriter; Essayist; Short Story Writer; Writer
  • AwardsGrand Merit Cross Of The Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany; Knight Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca; Legion Of Honour; Prix Formentor; World Fantasy Award For Life Achievement; Order Of Merit Of The Italian Republic; Alfonso Reyes International Prize; Jerusalem Prize; Miguel De Cervantes Prize; Balzan Prize