In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.
Meaning of the quote
Everything we write, read, or create is the result of countless events and ideas that came before it. And everything we write, read, or create will go on to influence countless more events and ideas in the future. Nothing exists in isolation - it is all part of a never-ending chain of causes and effects.
About Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges was an acclaimed Argentine writer known for his innovative short stories and essays exploring themes like dreams, infinity, and mythology. He became an internationally renowned figure in the 20th century and influenced the magic realist movement in Latin American literature.
More quotes from Jorge Luis Borges
Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
My undertaking is not difficult, essentially. I should only have to be immortal to carry it out.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Life and death have been lacking in my life.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The central problem of novel-writing is causality.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
In general, every country has the language it deserves.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Democracy is an abuse of statistics.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Life itself is a quotation.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
The original is unfaithful to the translation.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
Reality is not always probable, or likely.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)
I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.
Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899-1986)