A Personal Anthology Quotes

“Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing, the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“I had no wish to take any determined route on that stroll; I attempted, rather, a maximum latitude of probabilities in order not to wear out expectation with an obligatory anticipation of a single one of them. I was able, within the imperfect limits of possibility, to walk, as they say, at random. I accepted, without any conscious prejudice but that of avoiding the wider avenues and streets, the most obscure invitations of chance.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“Sleepless, obsessed, almost joyful, I reflected on how nothing is less material than money, insamuch as any coin whatsoever (a twenty-centavo piece, let us say) is, strictly speaking, a repertory of possible futures. Money is abstract, I repeated, money is future time. It can be an evening in the suburbs, it can be the music of Brahms, it can be chess, it can be coffee, it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“Wątpliwe, aby świat miał sens; jeszcze bardziej wątpliwe, aby miał sens podwójny lub potrójny, zauważy niedowiarek. Ja sądzę, że tak właśnie jest; (...).”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“Time is the substance of which I am”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“each time I cross one of the streets in South Buenos Aires, I think of you, Helen;”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“L’uomo va a letto presto. Non riesce a prender sonno. Si rigira, com’è naturale, nel letto. Si aggroviglia nelle lenzuola. Accende una sigaretta. Legge un po’. Spegne di nuovo la luce. Ma non riesce a dormire. Alle tre del mattino si alza. Sveglia l’amico accanto e gli dice che non riesce a dormire. Gli chiede consiglio. L’amico gli suggerisce di fare quattro passi per stancarsi un po’, di bersi una tazza di tiglio e di spegnere la luce. Fa tutto questo, ma non riesce a dormire. Si alza di nuovo. Questa volta ricorre al medico. Come di solito avviene, il medico parla molto ma l’uomo non si addormenta. Alle sei del mattino carica una pistola e si fa saltare le cervella. L’uomo è morto, ma non è riuscito ad addormentarsi. L’insonnia è una cosa molto persistente.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“He walked against the florid banners of the fire. And the fire did not bite his flesh but caressed and engulfed him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he, too, was all appearance, that someone else was dreaming him.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“No less vain to my mind are hope and fear, for they always refer to future events, that is, to events which will not happen to us, who are the minute present.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“Reality may be too complex for oral transmission; legend recreates it in a manner which is only accidentally false and which allows it to go about the world, from mouth to mouth.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“To deny temporal succession, to deny the self, to deny the astronomical universe, are measures of apparent despair and of secret consolation. Our destiny (in contrast to Swedenborg's hell and the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironbound. Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“They tell me that the present, the "specious present" of the psychologists, lasts from between several seconds and the smallest fraction of a second: such is the length of the history of the universe. Or better, there is no such thing as "the life of a man," nor even "one night in his life." Each moment we live exists, not the imaginary combination of these moments. The universe, the sum total of all events, is a collection no less ideal than the sum of all the horses of which Shakespeare dreamt—one, many, none?—between 1592 and 1594.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“The dawn, the dusk, centuries, arms, and the binding and sundering sea.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology

“Men leave off being wild beasts in one divine moment”
― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology