QuoteProject
The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
Jorge Luis Borges
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on human procrastination and the illusion of immortality.

Jorge Luis Borges suggests that people tend to delay important actions and decisions, perhaps because they subconsciously believe in their own immortality or the idea that time is infinite. This perspective highlights the paradox of human existence where, despite being aware of life's finiteness, individuals often choose to postpone meaningful endeavors, underestimating the urgency of their choices.

Themes

TruthProcrastinationImmortalityLifeChoices

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about taking action now rather than later.

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

Similar quotes

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David ThoreauRead
I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Rama, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a tremendous spiritual wave comes, and on the top of the wave is a Christ.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Cannons and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines; I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the Devil. If Adam had seen in a vision the horrible instruments his children were to invent, he would have died of grief.
Martin LutherRead
Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live.
Woodrow WilsonRead
To our critical eyes, the threads of which the past is woven are, by nature, endless and indivisible. Scientifically speaking, we cannot grasp the absolute beginning of anything: everything extends backwards to be prolonged by something else.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings, I observe how all endings become beginnings
Wayne DyerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.