QuoteProject
A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships
Jorge Luis Borges
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Books are interconnected with various ideas and relationships, reflecting a broader context.

In this quote, Borges emphasizes that a book is not merely a standalone entity; rather, it exists within a complex web of relationships involving authors, readers, and the myriad of ideas and influences that shape its existence. This interconnectedness suggests that the meaning of a book is derived not just from its content, but from its interactions with the world around it.

Themes

BooksRelationshipsPhilosophyLiteratureMeaning

In practice

Example use cases

During a book club meeting to highlight the importance of discussing books.

More from Jorge Luis Borges

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.
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

Similar quotes

He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
C. S. LewisRead
Ignorance ... is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.
George EliotRead
I won't undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.
Francois RabelaisRead
Through forgiveness, which essentially means recognizing the insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is, the miracle of transformation happens not only within but also without.
Eckhart TolleRead
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
Kurt VonnegutRead
If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we'd think it's a pretty serious problem. In fact, we'd probably go to war.
Noam ChomskyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Jorge Luis Borges | QuoteProject