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The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Flattery from future generations holds little value, similar to the empty compliments of the present.

In this quote, Jorge Luis Borges suggests that the praise we seek from others, whether it comes from our contemporaries or from future generations, is ultimately insignificant. Both forms of flattery are seen as lacking true substance or worth, emphasizing the idea that one's true value lies beyond the fleeting opinions of others.

Themes

FlatteryPosterityContemporaryWorthValue

In practice

Example use cases

In a graduation speech emphasizing individuality over public perception.

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.
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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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