On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
Jorge Luis BorgesIt's a shame that we have to choose between two such second-rate countries as the USSR and the USA.
Jorge Luis BorgesIn vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitmanโs eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem.
Jorge Luis BorgesThe 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 BorgesCaptivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.
Jorge Luis BorgesI don't think there's any essential difference, at least for me, between writing poetry and writing prose.
Jorge Luis BorgesThe man who has learned that three plus one are four doesn't have to go through a proof of that assertion with coins, or dice, or chess pieces, or pencils. He knows it, and that's that. He cannot conceive a different sum. There are mathematicians who say that three plus one is a tautology for four, a different way of saying "four" ... If three plus one can be two, or fourteen, then reason is madness.
Jorge Luis Borges