Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges, was a short story writer, editor, essayist and critic from Argentina, who is regarded as one of the most accomplished short story writers in the world. Borges was educated in Switzerland and travelled across during his childhood, that gave him a unique worldview in his literary pursiuts.Borges wrote in Spanish and remains one of the icons of Spanish literature, having written such masterpieces like El Aleph and Ficciones, both being collections of short stories. His books of collected stories contained stories that were actually interlinked and was a unique story telling style, that made him a hugely popular author of the 1940s. Other than being a giant of Spanish literature in his own right, Borges also influenced the writer who emerged over the years. He was a pioneer ahead of his time and it is believed that he was the true pioneer of magic realism in literature. According to a critic, his book of collected short stories ‘A Universal His-tory of Infamy’ is perhaps the first instance of magic realism. Borges’ stories and life also produced a vast number of quotes that could be perfectly applicable in the modern world. Here are some of the selected ones.
I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
Jorge Luis Borges
Reality is not always probable, or likely.
Jorge Luis Borges
Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read books for the aesthetic emotions they offer me, and I ignore the commentaries and criticism.
Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
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.
Nothing is built on stone; All is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
Jorge Luis Borges
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
Jorge Luis Borges
Besides, rereading, not reading, is what counts.
Jorge Luis Borges
You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.
Jorge Luis Borges
I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.
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.
Leaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved.
It's a shame that we have to choose between two such second-rate countries as the USSR and the USA.
Jorge Luis Borges
Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not.
Jorge Luis Borges
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
The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with.
Chang Tzu tells us of a persevering man who after three laborious years mastered the art of dragon-slaying. For the rest of his days, he had not a single opportunity to test his skills.
Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch
this declaration of the mastery
of God who, with magnificent irony,
granted me both the gift of books and the night.
A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.
Jorge Luis Borges
Another school declares that all time has already transpired and that our life is only the crepuscular and no doubt falsified and mutilated memory or reflection of an irrecoverable process.
All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare
Jorge Luis Borges
Words are symbols for shared memories. If I use a word, then you should have some experience of what the word stands for. If not, the word means nothing to you.
