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A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

Jorge Luis Borges

We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Memories Mirror Museum Shape
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
What will die with me when I die, what pathetic or fragile form will the world lose?
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Death Form Fragile Lose World
The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Confusion Orthodox
Films are even stranger, for what we are seeing are not disguised people but photographs of disguised people, and yet we believe them while the film is being shown.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Believe Disguise Movie People Photograph Stranger
So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Decoration Flower Garden Plant Self Love Soul Yourself
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

Book Disappear Diversity History Man Myself
What I’m really concerned about is reaching one person. And that person may be myself for all I know.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Known Myself Person Reach
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Build Philosophy Stone
I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Detail Memories Myself Night Solitude Thinking Walk
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
It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Allow Himself History Human Sea
I have committed the worst of sins one can commit. I have not been happy.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Commitment Happiness Myself Sin Worst
Death is just infinity closing in.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Close Death Infinite
When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Death Writing
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

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

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A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

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Popular Authors

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