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When I wake up, I wake to something worse. It’s the astonishment of being myself.

Jorge Luis Borges

No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Identity Immortal Man Myself Personality Philosophy
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
Censorship is the mother of metaphor.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Hide Metaphor Mom
A writer needs loneliness, and he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and also unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the universe. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer – to be living a kind of double life.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Himself Life Live Lonely Need Share Writing
Doubt is one of the names of intelligence.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Doubt Inspirational Intelligence Name
To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we’ll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Immortal Invention Known Man Play Separate Way
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
In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Adultery Inform Sacrifice Tenderness University
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
In my next life I will try to commit more errors.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

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

Memories Mirror Museum Shape
The mightiest love was granted him Love that does not expect to be loved.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Expectation Himself Love
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
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Flattery Poster Worth
I gazed at every mirror on the planet, not one gave back my reflection.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Mirror Myself Planet Reflection
Israelites, Christians and Muslims profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Believe Destiny Punishment Religion Reward Secularism World

When I wake up, I wake to something worse. It’s the astonishment of being myself.

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When I wake up, I wake to something worse. It’s the astonishment of being myself.

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