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Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the value of reading over writing, highlighting that knowledge gained from reading is more significant.

Jorge Luis Borges expresses a preference for the richness of experiences and insights gained through reading rather than the quantity of content produced by writing. In a world where many might take pride in their written works, Borges suggests that true accomplishment lies in the depth of understanding and wisdom acquired from the multitude of books one has explored.

Themes

ReadingKnowledgeBooksWisdomLiterature

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of lifelong learning, this quote illustrates the value of reading.

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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
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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