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
It means much to have loved, to have been happy, to have laid my hand on the living Garden, even for a day.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the value of experiencing love and joy, even if only for a brief time.
In this quote, Jorge Luis Borges expresses the profound significance of having loved and found happiness, emphasizing that even a fleeting moment of connection with life and beauty ('the living Garden') holds immense worth. It suggests that the richness of these experiences, regardless of their duration, contributes to the essence of human existence and fulfillment.
In practice
This quote can serve as a comforting reminder during a wedding speech about cherishing moments of love.
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.
As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mind, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love.
He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.
I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine: these buttons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fans upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors -- all bear the trace of someone's fingers on their handle or surface, the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness.
I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.
But, when the chips are down, its better to be furious with someone you love, or frightened for someone you love, than be put through the merciless horror of being ashamed of someone you love.
Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.