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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Farewells are often seen as temporary, reflecting a belief in the continuity of connections despite physical separation.
In this quote, Borges explores the paradox of goodbyes, suggesting that they imply a denial of true separation. He implies that farewells are a human construct, reflecting our desire to believe in the enduring nature of relationships, despite the transient nature of life itself. The quote captures the essence of how we cling to the idea of tomorrow as a promise of reunion, showcasing the interplay between our perceptions of mortality and our longing for lasting connections.
Themes
GoodbyeSeparationImmortalityFarewellRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
During a moving farewell speech at a friend's departure party.
More from Jorge Luis Borges
All quotes →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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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
Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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