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I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man’s diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books… If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.

Jorge Luis Borges

What a writer wants to do is not what he does.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Himself Writing
Poets, like the blind, can see in the dark.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Blind Darkness Poet
I would rather like to think of God as being a kind of adventurer – even as Wells thought about him – or perhaps as something within us making for some unknown purpose.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

God Kind Myself Purpose Thinking Unknown
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

Book Himself Knowledge Man Possibility
Art is very mysterious. I wonder if you can really do any damage to art. I think that when we’re writing, something comes through or should come through, in spite of our theories. So theories are not really important.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Art Damage Important Mystery Theory Writing Yourself
I have sometimes suspected that the only thing that holds no mystery is happiness, because it is its own justification.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Happiness Hold Mystery
Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Allow Forgiveness Myself See Sin
I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Love Myself Reading Travel Visit Woman Writing
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Flattery Poster Worth
Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird’s cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Creation Eyes Human Listening World
I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Country Enemy Garden Man Moments Nature Stream
I gazed at every mirror on the planet, not one gave back my reflection.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Mirror Myself Planet Reflection
To arrange a library is to practice in a quiet and modest way the art of criticism.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Arrangement Criticism Practice Quiet
In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Dreams Feeling Horror Sensation
It’s a shame that we have to choose between two such second-rate countries as the USSR and the USA.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Choice Country Shame
The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Belief Celebration Direct Expression Fight State

I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man’s diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books… If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.

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I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man’s diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books… If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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