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

Some men, at the approach of a dispute, neigh like horses.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
John KeatsRead
I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like. But i do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.
Ivan TurgenevRead
So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.
Derrick JensenRead
The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.
Douglas AdamsRead
Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.
Marguerite YourcenarRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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