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
His life, measured in space and time, will take up a mere few lines, which my ignorance will abbreviate further.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the brevity of life and our limited understanding of it.
Jorge Luis Borges expresses a poignant thought about the limitations of human existence. He suggests that our lives, when considered within the confines of space and time, are incredibly brief and will ultimately be summarized or misunderstood by others, highlighting the complexity and depth of human experience that often goes unrecognized or overlooked.
Themes
LifeBrevityUnderstandingExistencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech to remind students to cherish their short time in academia.
More from Jorge Luis Borges
All quotes βTo 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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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
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