Jorge Luis Borges's best quotes
The top 3 according to 5 votes from people: I, who always imagined Paradise / as a kind of library. · I have committed the worst of sins / a man can commit. I have not been / happy. · Mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men.. (Updated Nov 2, 2020.)
Lines and verses by Borges with the book they come from: Ficciones, The Aleph, Other Inquisitions, In Praise of Darkness, The Iron Coin… Left out: the famous poem «Moments» («If I could live my life again…»), which isn't his.
Automatically translated (original in Español). See the original
Top 10
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1
I, who always imagined Paradise / as a kind of library.
«Poem of the Gifts», written after losing his sight and being made director of the National Library (1955).
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2
I have committed the worst of sins / a man can commit. I have not been / happy.
«Remorse», in The Iron Coin (1976).
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3
Mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men.
«Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius», in Ficciones (1944).
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4
Writing a poem is attempting a minor magic.
From Los conjurados (1985), his last book of poems.
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5
Night is a long and lonely party.
From Luna de enfrente (1925), his second book of poems.
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6
Let others boast of the pages they have written; / I am proud of those I have read.
«A Reader», in In Praise of Darkness (1969).
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7
Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river.
«A New Refutation of Time», in Other Inquisitions (1952).
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8
Any life, however long and complicated, actually consists of a single moment: the moment a man knows forever who he is.
«A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz», in The Aleph (1949).
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9
Let none think I by tear or reproach make light / of this manifesting the mastery / of God, who with excelling irony…
«Let none think I by tear or reproach make light / of this manifesting the mastery / of God, who with excelling irony / gives me at once both books and night.» The opening of the «Poem of the Gifts» (1960).
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10
Gradual blindness is not a tragic thing. It is like a slow summer twilight.
The lecture «Blindness», collected in Seven Nights (1980).
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 10… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
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11
I saw the Aleph from every point, I saw the earth in the Aleph, and in the earth the Aleph once more, and the earth…
«I saw the Aleph from every point, I saw the earth in the Aleph, and in the earth the Aleph once more, and the earth in the Aleph.» «The Aleph» (1945), the story that gives its title to the 1949 book.
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Comments (3)
El Aleph es el mejor cuento escrito en español.
Gracias por aclarar lo de «Instantes», mi profe de lengua lo usaba como de Borges 😅
«Que otros se jacten de las páginas que han escrito...» la tengo pegada en la estantería.