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The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The tango symbolizes the idea that conflicts can also be a form of joy and celebration.

In this quote, Borges suggests that the tango, as a dance, embodies a deeper truth that often eludes verbal expression: the notion that tensions and struggles can lead to a celebration rather than mere conflict. This duality reflects both the emotional intensity of the dance and the complexities of human relationships, echoing the belief that confrontation is not solely about discord, but can also serve as a joyous and passionate experience.

Themes

TangoCelebrationConflictExpressionDance

In practice

Example use cases

During a dance performance, I quoted Borges to highlight the emotional depth of the tango.

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.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead

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