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We are as ignorant of the meaning of the dragon as we are of the meaning of the universe.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that our understanding of complex concepts, like the dragon or the universe, is limited and filled with mystery.

In this quote, Borges emphasizes the profound ignorance that humanity shares regarding the deeper meanings of both mythical creatures and the universe itself. It suggests that just as we struggle to comprehend what dragons symbolize in mythology, we similarly grapple with the vastness and significance of existence, highlighting the limitations of human understanding and the mysterious nature of reality.

Themes

IgnoranceUniverseMeaningDragonMystery

In practice

Example use cases

In a philosophical discussion about the nature of existence.

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.
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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.
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