top of page

Ficciones

Jorge Luis Borges

Top 10 Best Quotes

“A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships”

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

“To think, analyze and invent are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence.”

“He measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.”

“Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be.”

“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.”

“There are objects made up of two sense elements, one visual, the other auditory—the colour of a sunrise and the distant call of a bird. Other objects are made up of many elements—the sun, the water against the swimmer's chest, the vague quivering pink which one sees when the eyes are closed, the feeling of being swept away by a river or by sleep. These second degree objects can be combined with others; using certain abbreviations, the process is practically an infinite one. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word, a word which in truth forms a poetic object, the creation of the writer. The fact that no one believes that nouns refer to an actual reality means, paradoxically enough, that there is no limit to the numbers of them.”

“I remember him with a dark passionflower in his hand, looking at it as no one has ever looked at such a flower, though they might look from the twilight of day until the twilight of night, for a whole life long.”

“To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract.”

“Things became duplicated in Tlön; they also tend to become effaced and lose their details when they are forgotten. A classic example is the doorway which survived so long as it was visited by a beggar and disappeared at his death. At times some birds, a horse, have saved the ruins of an amphitheater.”

Except where otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the author(s) of this book (mentioned above). The content of this page serves as promotional material only. If you enjoyed these quotes, you can support the author(s) by acquiring the full book from Amazon.

Book Keywords:

fiction, generalization, reality, strength, difference, truth, life, language, borges, abstraction, thought, weakness, memory, thinking, meaning

bottom of page