Professor Borges Quotes

“I believe that the phrase ‘obligatory reading’ is a contradiction in terms; reading should not be obligatory. Should we ever speak of 'obligatory pleasure'? Pleasure is not obligatory, pleasure is something we seek. 'Obligatory happiness'! [...] If a book bores you, leave it; don’t read it because it is famous, don’t read it because it is modern, don’t read a book because it is old. If a book is tedious to you, leave it, even if that book is 'Paradise Lost' — which is not tedious to me — or 'Don Quixote' — which also is not tedious to me. But if a book is tedious to you, don't read it; that book was not written for you. Reading should be a form of happiness, so I would advise all possible readers of my last will and testament—which I do not plan to write— I would advise them to read a lot, and not to get intimidated by writers' reputations, to continue to look for personal happiness, personal enjoyment. It is the only way to read.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“There is a Talmudic legend about three men who go in search of God. One became insane, the other died, and the third met himself.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“There is a Hindu school of philosophy that says that we are not the actors in our lives, but rather the spectators, and this is illustrated using the metaphor of a dancer. These days, maybe it would be better to say an actor. A spectator sees a dancer or an actor, or, if you prefer, reads a novel, and ends up identifying with one of the characters who is there in front of him. This is what those Hindu thinkers before the fifth century said. And the same thing happens with us. I, for example, was born the same day as Jorge Luis Borges, exactly the same day. I have seen him be ridiculous in some situations, pathetic in others. And, as I have always had him in front of me, I have ended up identifying with him.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“And I believe there was a rabbi who wrote that the Holy Scriptures were specifically destined, predestined, for each of its readers. That is, it has a different meaning if any of you read it or if I read it, or if it is read by men in the future or in the past.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“I forgot to say—a merely curious detail—that in one of the first chapters of Sartor Resartus, when speaking about garments, Carlyle says that the simplest garment he knows of was used by the cavalry of Bolivar in the South American war. And here we have a description of the poncho as “a blanket with a hole in the middle,” under which he imagines Bolivar’s cavalry soldier, he imagines him—simplifying it a bit—“mother naked,” as naked as when he came out of his mother’s belly, covered by the poncho, with only his sword and his spear.”25”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“But if a book is tedious to you, don’t read it; that book was not written for you. Reading should be a form of happiness,”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“The curious thing about The Ring and the Book, to which I will now return, is that although each character recounts the same events, and although there is no difference in what they tell, there is a fundamental difference, which belongs to the realm of human psychology, the fact that each of us believes we are justified. For example, the count admits he is a murderer, but the word “murderer” is too general. We know this from reading other books.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“I would say, however, that romantic sentiment is a keen and pathetic sense of time, a few hours of amorous delight, the idea that everything passes away; a deeper sentiment for autumn, for twilight, for the passing nature of our own lives.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature

“In every instance, poetry comes before prose. It seems that man sings before he speaks.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature