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As the end approaches, there are no longer any images from memory - there are only words.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that as life diminishes, memories fade and only the significance of words remains.

Jorge Luis Borges reflects on the nature of memory and the essence of communication as life draws to a close. It implies that memories, once vivid and rich, may dissolve, leaving behind only the impactful words spoken or written. In this way, it highlights the enduring nature of language and the way it encapsulates our experiences, even when our recollections begin to fade.

Themes

MemoryWordsLifeReflectionCommunication

In practice

Example use cases

During a memorial service, one might quote Borges to emphasize the importance of the words we share.

More from Jorge Luis Borges

You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
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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 BorgesRead
The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.
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This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that these beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
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A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch this declaration of the mastery of God who, with magnificent irony, granted me both the gift of books and the night.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead

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