Quote

The visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply it and extend it.

Jorge Luis Borges

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jorge Luis Borges
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: August 24
Died: 1986
Died: March 26
Librarian
Literary Critic
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Buenos Ayres
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges
Chorche Louis Borches
Jorge Luis Borges Acevedo
Horhe Luis Borhes
J. L. Borges
H. Bustos Domecq
Khorkhe Luyis Borkhes
Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo
Illusion
Abominable
Universe
Multiply
Fatherhood
Extend
Precisely
Visible
Mirrors

More quotes by Jorge Luis Borges

Image
Happy are the beloved and the lovers and those who can live without love.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
Everything touches everything.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
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
Image
It means much to have loved, to have been happy, to have laid my hand on the living Garden, even for a day.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious habit of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines on the palms of one's hand.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
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.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
Doubt is one of the names of intelligence.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
I can’t talk about my books. I have written them and tried to forget them. I have written once, and readers have read me many times, no? I try to think of what I wrote, it’s very unhealthy to think about the past, the case of elegies is very sad, as much as the case of complaints.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
His life, measured in space and time, will take up a mere few lines, which my ignorance will abbreviate further.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
The man who acquires an encyclopedia does not thereby acquire every line, every paragraph, every page, and every illustration he acquires the possibility of becoming familiar with one and another of those things.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
There is no point in being overwhelmed by the appalling total of human sufferring such a total does not exist. Neither poverty nor pain is accumulable.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
There are those who seek the love of a woman to forget her, to not think about her.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.
Jorge Luis Borges
Image
Perhaps the apparent favor of the universe is no more than the crocodile grin of a Doberman breathing hard and about to be hungry?
Jorge Luis Borges