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The visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply it and extend it.

Jorge Luis Borges

If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father’s library.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Father Library Life Name
The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Discover Fact Library Poetry
When you reach my age, you realize you couldn’t have done things very much better or much worse than you did them in the first place.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Age Better Place Reach Worst Yourself
The word happiness exists in every language; it is plausible the thing itself exists.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Happiness Word
In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of others.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Choice Expense Face Fiction Man
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Man Myself See Soldier
A poet is a discoverer rather than an inventor.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Discover Invention Poet
In general, every country has the language it deserves.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Country Deserve Language
The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Art Happiness Man Memories Music Transformation
It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Known Reason Simplicity Universe
Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Oneself Page Pride Reading Writing
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
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
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
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
While we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another one.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Awake Fantasy Philosophy Science World

The visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply it and extend it.

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The visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply it and extend it.

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