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 believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a belief in a future where people will be worthy of freedom from governmental control.
Jorge Luis Borges reflects on the notion that true freedom from government is contingent upon the maturity and responsibility of individuals. He suggests that as society evolves and people develop a greater sense of self-governance and ethical behavior, they will ultimately reach a state where they can function without the constraints of a governing body, implying that personal development is key to achieving freedom.
In practice
During a speech on civil liberties, one might reference this quote to advocate for less governmental oversight.
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.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.
The Life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
We must not inquire too curiously into motives. they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.
Jesus Christ does not teach us a spirituality “of closed eyes”, but one of “alertness”, one which entails an absolute duty to take notice of the needs of others and of situations involving those whom the Gospel tells us are our neighbours. The gaze of Jesus, what “his eyes” teach us, leads to human closeness, solidarity, giving time, sharing our gifts and even our material goods.
I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t meant to leave.
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