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
In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that every action in literature (and life) is the result of a complex chain of causes and leads to a multitude of effects.
Jorge Luis Borges reflects on the interconnectedness of actions and events in literature, highlighting that each act is not isolated but rather the culmination of countless preceding influences and the catalyst for numerous subsequent outcomes. This perspective encourages a deeper understanding of the narrative and its broader implications, suggesting that every story is part of a larger continuum of human experience.
Themes
LiteratureCausesEffectsInterconnectednessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about causality and narrative structure.
More from Jorge Luis Borges
All quotes →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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