Borges’ classic sentences

Borges is an Argentine poet, novelist, essayist and translator, and is known as the archaeologist among writers. Let’s take a look at some of his classic sentences!

1. Among all human inventions, the most amazing is undoubtedly the book. Other inventions are simply extensions of the human body. Microscopes and telescopes are extensions of vision; telephones are extensions of sound; then we have plows and swords, extensions of arms. But books are something else: books are expansions of memory and imagination. ——Jorge Luis Borges

2. The world is already a maze, and there is no need to build another one. ——Borges "Aleph"

3. The storyteller in the collection of Arabic folk tales "One Thousand and One Nights". According to legend, the king of Sasan killed the queen because he hated her for being similar to others. From then on, he married a girl every day and killed her the next morning. In order to save the innocent woman, Scheherazade, the daughter of the prime minister, voluntarily married the king and told stories every night to arouse the king's interest and avoid being killed. Her story tells the story of One Thousand and One Nights. ——Borges "The Garden of Forking Paths"

4. "Glory to the immortal God, who holds in his hands the two keys of infinite forgiveness and infinite punishment." ——Borges "Two Dreams and Others"

5. The basements of abandoned beer shops where black people live together; the slums of New York, which are mostly dilapidated three-story buildings; Outlaw gangs such as the "Swamp Angels"; the "Foxiao Boys" gang who specializes in recruiting teenage killers; and the "Suburban Roughnecks" gang who live alone and run rampant. The top hat is full of wool, but the long hem of the shirt is floating outside the trousers. He holds a big stick in his right hand and a big gun in his waist. It makes people laugh and laugh at the sight of it - Borges' "The Garden of Forking Paths" 》

6. A fate that never admits its mistakes may be merciless to some small negligences. ——Borges "The South"

7. Remember the Noxians said that the only way to avoid committing sin is to commit sin, because from then on you will change for the better. In the field of literature, this statement is completely correct. I would still be happy if, after I had written fifteen intolerable volumes, I found that there were still four or five acceptable pages in them. ——Borges "Borges on Poetry and Art"

8. Like all writers, he evaluates the achievements of others by using their completed works, but requires others to use his ideas. or planned works to evaluate himself. ——Borges "The Secret Miracle"

9. They will teach us that eternity is the stillness of the present, which is what the philosophical school calls the freezing of time; but they or anyone else does not understand this. Not understanding it is just like not understanding that the infinite vastness is the solidification of space. ——Borges, "Aleph"

10. The continuity of language inappropriately exaggerates the facts we are talking about, because each word occupies a place on the page and a place in the reader's mind. A moment. ——Borges, "Guayaquil"

11. I think young people seem to particularly like this feeling of forced sadness; they almost do their best to make themselves sad, and And they usually succeed. ——Borges "Borges Talks about Poetry and Art"

12. What poetry should be like is passion and joy. ——Borges "Borges on Poetry and Art"

13. He scolded the critics; then, he kindly described the critics as "the kind of people who have no coins of their own" Gold and silver do not have steam presses, rolling mills, or sulfuric acid, but they can point out where others hide their treasures." ——Borges' "Aleph"

14. Heroes fight like this, with respectable hearts and fearless hearts, and the steel swords in their hands are extremely sharp, just to kill their opponents or die on the battlefield— - Borges

15. The God who dominates everything in the dark is generous. —— Borges "Two Dreams and Others"

16. I will write some stories, and the reason why I will write these things is that I believe these things - this is not whether I believe in history It's just the level of authenticity of the event, but it's the level of someone believing in a dream or idea. ——Borges "Borges Talks about Poetry and Art"

17. Has Borges ever been dissatisfied with his fate deep down? We suspect that he would. He no longer believed in free will, but liked to repeat Carlyle's famous saying: "The history of the world is the article we are forced to read and constantly write, and in that article we ourselves are described." ——Howe · Lu Borges' "The Life of a Villain"

18. Stealing horses from one state and selling them in another was only an insignificant detail in Morel's criminal career. , but it has great merits, and Morel occupied a prominent position in "The Lives of Villains" with it. This approach is unique, not only because the circumstances that determine the approach are very unique, but also because the means are very despicable, playing on the psychology of hope, making people desperate, and gradually evolving like a nightmare.

Al Capone and "Beetle" Moran had strong capital and a group of murderous desperadoes operating in big cities. Their activities are not on the table. They are just competing for dominance. As for the number of people, Morel has more than a thousand people, all of whom have sworn an oath and are determined to follow him. Two hundred people formed the Supreme Council to give orders, and the remaining eight hundred people obeyed. The ones taking the risk are the following group of people. If anyone rebelled, they were thrown into official hands and punished by law, or thrown into a turbulent stream with a stone tied to their feet to prevent their bodies from floating. ——Joseph Borges "The Biography of Villains"

19. If you fight like a man, you will not be hanged like a dog. ——Borges

20. I predict that people will increasingly succumb to extremely evil things; before long the world will be full of warriors and bandits; what I want to advise them is: People who do extremely evil things should pretend that the thing has been completed, and should treat the future as irreversible as the past. That's what I did, I treated myself as if I were already dead, watching the day, perhaps the last day pass and the night fall with cold eyes. ——Joseph Borges, "Fictions"

21. A person can be the enemy of other people, and can be the enemy of other people at other times, but he cannot become the enemy of a country. , cannot be enemies with fireflies, gardens, flowing water, and wind. —— Borges "The Garden of Forking Paths"

22. When the details of things are forgotten, they are easily blurred and lost. The example of the threshold is very typical: when the beggar often goes there, the threshold always exists, but after the beggar dies, the threshold disappears. Sometimes a few birds or a horse can save the ruins of an amphitheatre. —— Jorge Luis Borges, "Collected Fictions"

23. Any intellectual activity is ultimately useful. A philosophical theory begins as a credible description of the universe; as time goes by, it gradually becomes a chapter, or even a section or a name in the history of philosophy. In the field of literature, the eventual tendency towards decrepitude is even more obvious. Menard told me that Quixote began as a delightful book, but now became a justification for patriotism, grammatical authority, and a deluxe edition. Glory is something incomprehensible, perhaps the worst thing. —— Jorge Luis Borges, "Fictions"

24. A rose is a rose, and its fragrance is meaningless —— Borges

25. At dawn, he dreamed Find yourself in the reading room of the Clementino Library. A librarian wearing sunglasses asked him what he was looking for. Horadric replied asking for God. The administrator said to him: God is in a certain letter in a certain volume and a certain page of the 400,000-volume collection of the Clementino Library. My parents, my parents' parents, looked for that letter; I looked for it myself, and it blinded me. He took off his glasses, and Horadric discovered that he was indeed blind. A reader came in to return an atlas. This atlas is of no use, the caretaker said, handing it to Horadric. Horadric flipped through it. He was dazzled by a map of India. He suddenly felt blessed and pointed at one of the letters. A voice from nowhere said: Your requested working hours have been approved. —— Borges "The Secret Miracle"

26. As Cruise struggled in the darkness (his body struggled in the darkness), he began to understand. He understands that there is no good or bad fate, but people should act according to their inner calling. He understood that the armband and uniform were now a constraint on him. He understands that his nature is to be a solitary wolf, not a gregarious dog; he understands that the other person is himself. It was already daylight on the wild plains. Cruise threw his military cap to the ground and shouted that he would never allow a brave man to be killed when outnumbered. He turned around and joined the deserter Martin Fierro, Fighting with the soldiers. ——Borges "The Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz"

27. At the age of 19, he opened a bird shop that also sold cats and dogs with the help of his father. His interest in exploring the animals' habits, observing their minute decisions and elusive innocence, stayed with him throughout his life. In his heyday, even the freckled office-bearers at the Democratic Party headquarters in New York did not even bother to offer his cigars. When he visited the most exclusive brothels in a luxury car that looked like a Venetian gondola, he also opened a bird shop as a cover. ——There are 100 purebred cats and 400 pigeons inside. They will not be sold at any high price. He dotes on every cat, and when he patrols his territory, he often holds one cat in his hand and several more behind him. ——Howard Borges "The Biography of Villains"

28. Norwegian... compares blood to "snake water". ——Borges "Borges on Poetry and Art"

29. I suddenly remembered another fantasy of Coleridge. Someone dreamed of going to heaven, and heaven gave him a flower as evidence. When he woke up, the flower was still there. —— Borges "The Other Man"

30. I have accepted those ugly things since I was a child. There are many incompatible things in the world that have to accept each other in order to survive. ——Jorge Luis Borges "It's Not Over"

31. Perfect words don't look strange at all in poetry; they seem to be natural.

So we rarely appreciate the pain writers go through. ——Borges "Borges on Poetry and Art"

32. Like us, it is gradually involved in this maze of sounds, covering the past, the future, yesterday, now, Left and right, you and me, others, etc. —— Borges "The Dummy"

33. I think the sin of contemporary literature is that it is too self-conscious... When I write... I try to forget myself. I would forget about my personal upbringing... I would just try to convey my dream. ——Borges "Borges Talks about Poetry and Art"

34. If I am not destined to get that honor, wisdom and happiness, then let others get it. Even if I go to hell, I hope heaven exists. Even if I am destroyed, may your vast library be confirmed in one person, if only for a moment. ——Borges "The Library of Babel"

35. "It is the sin that the two of us are committing now," the king whispered. "Understand the sin of beauty, because it is forbidden to people." - Borges, "Mirrors and Masks"

36. The photo of Morel that often appears in American magazines is not of him myself. It is not an accident that the true identity of such a famous figure is rarely revealed. It can be imagined that Morel did not want to take photos, mainly to avoid leaving useless traces, and at the same time to increase his mystery... However, we know that when he was young, he was not good-looking, his eyes were too close together, and his lips were too thin, so he would not Give people a good impression. Later, time gave him the air of an aging scoundrel and a criminal on the loose. He was like an old-fashioned rich man from the South. Although he had a poor childhood, a difficult life, and had never read the Bible, he preached with great seriousness. "I've seen Lazarus Morel in the pulpit," said a casino owner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, "listening to his sobering speeches and seeing his eyes filled with tears. , I knew clearly that he was a pervert, a liar who kidnapped and trafficked black slaves, and could kill people in front of God, but I couldn't help but cry." - Jorge Luis Borges' "Biographies of Villains"< /p>

37. People on that planet believe that the universe is a series of thought processes that do not unfold in space but continue in time. ——Borges "Tron, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"

38. Because people live in time and the continuation of time, but the mysterious animal lives In the present, in the eternity of the moment. ——Borges "The South"

39. Tennyson said that if we can understand a flower, we will know who we are and what the world is. He might want to say that things, no matter how minute, involve the history of the universe and its infinite causal relationships. He may want to say that every image in the visible world is complete, just as Schopenhauer said, everyone's will is complete'. Mystic philosophers believed that man was a microcosm, a symbolic mirror of the universe; according to Tennyson, so was everything. Everything, even that intolerable Zaire. Idealists say that dreams come true, and "life" and "dream" are strictly the same word; I will classify hundreds of superficial phenomena into one superficial phenomenon, and classify an extremely complex dream into a very simple one. Dream. Others may dream that I am crazy, but I dream of Zaire. When everyone in the world is thinking about Zaire day and night, then which one is a dream and which one is reality, the world or Zaire? Er? ——Borges' "Aleph"

40. I will not consider the reader when I write (because the reader is just an imaginary character), nor will I consider it. For myself (perhaps this is because I am just another imaginary character), what I think is that I have to try my best to express my feelings, and try not to mess up. - Borges, "Borges Discourses" Poetry on Art"

41. Let me make some explanations here. When you see something, you must first understand it. For example, the armchair presupposes the human body and its joints and parts; the scissors presuppose the action of cutting. The same is true for lamps and vehicles. The savages could not understand the Bible in the hands of the missionaries; the rigging seen by travelers was not the same thing as the rigging seen by sailors. If we could actually see the universe, we might understand it. ——Jorge Luis Borges, "The Matter Is Still Unfinished"

42. Those confusing fake names are like a tiring game of masks, making people confused about who is who, and the result is useless. His real name—if we dare to imagine such a thing in the world. Indeed, records in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, registrar's office indicate that his name was Edward Osterman, later changed to the Americanized Eastman. The strange thing is that the evil villain is actually a Jew. His father was the owner of a restaurant where food was prepared in accordance with kosher standards. Gentlemen with rabbinical beards could safely eat mutton that had been slaughtered according to the rules, drained of blood, and rinsed three times in that restaurant. ——Joseph Borges, "The Biographies of Villains"

43. Among Tron's many theories, only materialism caused an uproar. Like those who posited the paradox, materialism was proposed by certain thinkers who were overly enthusiastic and underanalysed.

In order to make it easier for people to understand the incomprehensible argument, a pagan founder in the 11th century came up with the specious theory of nine copper coins, which caused a sensation in Tlon. There are many versions of that "deceptive reasoning", and the number of copper coins and the number found vary; ——Joseph Borges, "Fictions"

44. 1517, Bartow Father Lome de las Casas felt very sorry for the Indians who lived an inhuman life and worked themselves to death in the gold mines of the Antilles. He suggested to King Carlos V of Spain that black people should be sent to replace them. Let black people live an inhuman life in the gold mines of the Antilles, working themselves to death. His compassionate heart led to this strange change, which later led to countless things: the black folk blues created by Handy, the East Coast painter Dr. Vincent Rozzi's fame in Paris, Abraham Lincoln's mythical great achievements, the Civil War Half a million soldiers killed, $3.3 billion in veterans' pensions, a statue of the legendary Farrucio, the word "lynching" included in the 13th edition of the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary, a movie with shocking scenes "Hallelujah", the mulattoes of different shades of skin who Soler led his men in Cerrito, the hand-to-hand charge, the grace and splendor of a certain lady, the black man who assassinated Martin Fierro, the sad rumba - How ·Lu Borges's "Biographies of Villains"

45. The founder of the pagan religion wanted to deduce from this incident the true situation of the nine coins being lost and recovered - that is, its continuity. He asserts, "The idea that four copper coins did not exist between Tuesday and Thursday, three copper coins between Tuesday and Friday afternoon, and two copper coins between Tuesday and Friday morning is absurd. It is logical. The idea is that the money has always existed in all the three periods of time, but in some hidden way that is not known to everyone. >

46. She looks like a damaged stone tablet. The neck is as short as a bull, the chest is broad and strong, and he has two long arms that are good at fighting. The bridge of his nose is broken, his face is scarred, and his body has more scars. His bow-legged gait is like that of a jockey or a sailor. He can wear no shirt or shirt, but he always has a short-tailed lark on his big head. ——Joseph Borges "The Biography of Villains"

47. Fugitives long for freedom. So Lazarus Morel's half-breeds passed an order to each other (perhaps it was just a code, everyone understood it by heart), giving them a complete liberation: let him be indifferent, ignorant, away from the world, free from grudges, No hounds to chase, no hopes to trick you, no blood and sweat to be shed, no farewell to your own skin forever. It only took a bullet, a stab in the stomach, or a club on the head, and only the turtles and tetrafish in the Mississippi River would hear his final message. ——Joseph Borges "The Biography of Villains"

48. 'In the early morning of December 25, 1920, the body of Monk Eastman was found on a busy street in New York. He was shot five times. A very ordinary cat that survived was wandering around him in confusion. It only took two sentences to explain the ending of the arrogant villain Monk Eastman, but it also echoed the logic: A person like this who started his career by doing evil must have suffered a lot of sorrow. The mysterious death is definitely reasonable, and it also seems to reveal this kind of unique and tragic fate. " —— Jorge Luis Borges, "The Biography of Villains"

49. "Apart from the topic I am talking about now, I would like to mention a poem, maybe this is Leopoldo Lugone Si's best poem. No doubt this was written inspired by Hell's Fifth Song. These are the first four lines of "Fortunate Soul," one of the 1922 collection of sonnets "The Golden Hour": As the afternoon drew to a close, I was saying goodbye to you out of habit, a departure. The vague pain when you are around makes me understand that I have fallen in love with you. ——Jorge Luis Borges, "Borges on Art"

50. They walked around the large plantations in the south, sometimes showing luxurious rings on their hands, which made people feel Looking the other way, they selected a hapless black man and said there was a way to free him. The method was to have the black people escape from the plantations of their old owners and sell them to another distant manor. He gave part of the money from selling his body to himself, and then helped him escape, and finally took him to a state that had abolished black slavery. Money and freedom, the jingling big silver dollar plus freedom, is there any more tempting temptation than this? The black man decided to escape for the first time regardless of everything. ——Joseph Borges "The Biography of Villains"

51. In the past, one person was responsible for every three hexagons. Suicide and lung disease undermine this ratio. I will never forget an indescribable melancholy: sometimes I would walk down the corridors and stairs for several nights without meeting a single librarian. —— Jorge Luis Borges, "Collected Fictions"

52. There is a line of Verlaine's poem that I can no longer remember, and there is an adjacent street that I can no longer step forward. There is a mirror that I look at for the last time, and a door that I close until the end of the world. Among the books in my library are ones I will never open again - I'm looking at them.

This summer, I will turn fifty. Death keeps wearing me down! ——Borges

53. I wonder if we will return in the next cycle like a recurring decimal. ;But I know there is a hidden Pythagorean cycle that keeps me somewhere in the world, night after night. ——Borges, "The Circular Night"

54. "A person orders someone who obeys him to do something. When the person who gave the order dies, the other person continues to do that thing until he dies. ——Jorge Luis Borges, "Borges on Art"

55. "I think with melancholy pride: the universe will change, but I will not . - "Aleph" by Borges"

56. Fascinating... is one of the most important qualities a writer should have. ——Borges

57. “This is one of those delicate and irritating issues that international law tries to delay as long as possible” ——José L. Borges, “Biographies of Villains”

59. One of the attributes of hell is its unreality, which makes it seem less terrifying, but it may also intensify it. ——Borges' "Aleph"

60. Three hundred nights will stand between me and my love like three hundred walls, and the sea will be like a magic barrier between you and me. between. There is nothing left but memories. The dusk that deserves to be tortured, the night I look forward to seeing you. Your path crosses the fields, I come and go again under the sky. The separation between you and me has been as sure as marble, making countless other evenings more sad.

—— Luis Borges "Separation" ;