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
In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on wasted potential and the failure to create art despite abundant inspiration.
Jorge Luis Borges expresses a deep sense of disappointment regarding unfulfilled creative potential. The imagery of oceans and the sun symbolizes the vastness of life and beauty that has been squandered on the individual, highlighting the anguish of not having produced a meaningful work, such as a poem, despite the richness of the experiences one has had. This serves as a poignant reminder of the urgency to create and contribute artistically before time runs out.
Themes
PotentialCreativityArtExistenceTimeInspiration
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about creative blocks during a writing workshop.
More from Jorge Luis Borges
All quotes →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.
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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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