black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

Jorge Luis Borges

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
Perhaps the apparent favor of the universe is no more than the crocodile grin of a Doberman breathing hard and about to be hungry?
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Breathe Hungry Universe
One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Confusion Corruption Infinite Limitation
The things that are said in literature are always the same. What is important is the way they are said.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Expression Important Literature
Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Books Existence Fools Ideas Summary Writing
I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Ease Friendship Minority Myself Time Writing
Every man should be capable of all ideas.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Capable Ideas Man
When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Death Writing
I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist – I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don’t have to solve that problem. It’s up to God, if any.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Identity Memories Problem Solution
Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Love Measurement Myself Relationship Time Yourself
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Consume Fire Myself River Substance Time
Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Flight Himself Life Lose
I had always thought of Paradise / In form and image as a library.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Form Heaven Library Myself Paradise Thinking
There is an hour of the afternoon when the plain is on the verge of saying something. It never says, or perhaps it says it infinitely, or perhaps we do not understand it, or we understand it and it is untranslatable as music.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Music Time Translation Understand
I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Afraid Feeling Myself Reading Shame Writing
Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Man Present Reflection Time Yourself

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Jorge Luis Borges Quotes