Jorge Luis Borges

(Argentine author; born 1899; died 1986)

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing. [Select]

{Category: Wisdom and Ignorance}

In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing. [Select]

"Three Versions of Judas" {Category: Vice and Virtue}

Mir Bahadur Ali is, as we have seen, incapable of evading the most vulgar of art's temptations: that of being a genius. [Select]

"The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" {Category: Art and Literature}

My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges. [Select]

"El informe de Brodie" {Category: Wisdom and Ignorance}

The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy. [Select]

"The Theologians" {Category: Science and Religion}

There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless. [Select]

"Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" {Categories: Art and Literature, Wisdom and Ignorance}

Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself. [Select]

(autobiographical essay, 1970) {Category: Art and Literature}

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