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
I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future . . . I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexity of existence and the perception of time as a continuous labyrinth.
In this quote, Jorge Luis Borges contemplates the nature of reality and time, suggesting that life is like a labyrinth—a complex and intricate structure that intertwines the past and future. The speaker experiences a moment of detachment, perceiving the world abstractly, as if observing a vast, interconnected web of experiences and choices, emphasizing the profound intricacies of human existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of existence and time at a philosophy seminar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.
While the intelligence profession oftentimes demands secrecy, it is critically important that there be a full and open discourse on intelligence matters with the appropriate elected representatives of the American people.
We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.
The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
The fact is, the most painful and tragic lesson of the 20th century was that regimes based on racial superiority and religious hatred can't be trusted to keep their word to the international community.
I drink for the thirst to come.
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