Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. J
  4. Jorge Luis Borges
  5. Past

Jorge Luis Borges Quotes about Past

All Jorge Luis Borges Quotes Art Country Doubt Duty Earth Ethics Exercise Falling In Love Feelings Giving Greek Heaven Hell Inspirational Labyrinth Language Life Literature Loneliness Mathematics Memories Metaphor Oblivion Past quotes Purpose Reading Reality Style Tigers Time Universe Water Writing
The future has no other reality than as present hope, and the past is no more than present memory.

The future has no other reality than as present hope, and the past is no more than present memory.

Jorge Luis Borges
Memories, Past, Reality
Jorge Luis Borges (2015). “Ficciones”, p.14, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Not a single star will be left in the night. The night will not be left. I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe. I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions, the continents and faces. I shall erase the accumulated past. I shall make dust of history, dust of dust. Now I am looking on the final sunset. I am hearing the last bird. I bequeath nothingness to no one.

Jorge Luis Borges
Stars, Sunset, Past
Jorge Luis Borges, Alastair Reid (1977). “The Gold of the Tigers: Selected Later Poems : a Bilingual Edition”, Dutton Adult

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Jorge Luis Borges
Writing, Past, Polemics
"Kafka and His Precursors" (1951) (translation by James E. Irby)

The thought came over me that never would one full and absolute moment, containing all the others, justify my life, that all of my instants would be provisional phases, annihilators of the past turned to face the future, and that beyond the episodic, the present, the circumstantial, we were nobody.

Jorge Luis Borges
Past, Phases, Faces
Jorge Luis Borges, Eliot Weinberger (1999). “Selected Non-fictions”, Viking Press

In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future." -- Essay: "Kafka and his Precursors

Jorge Luis Borges
Past, Vocabulary, Facts
"Kafka and His Precursors" (1951) (translation by James E. Irby)

Whoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.

Jorge Luis Borges
Past, Should, Accomplished
Jorge Luis Borges (1962). “Ficciones”, p.92, Grove Press

What man of us has never felt, walking through the twilight or writing down a date from his past, that he has lost something infinite?

Jorge Luis Borges
Twilight, Writing, Past
Jorge Luis Borges (1964). “Dreamtigers”, p.43, University of Texas Press

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future . . . I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world.

Jorge Luis Borges
Past, Labyrinth, World
Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.

Jorge Luis Borges
Warrior, Past, Men
Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

I can’t talk about my books. I have written them and tried to forget them. I have written once, and readers have read me many times, no? I try to think of what I wrote, it’s very unhealthy to think about the past, the case of elegies is very sad, as much as the case of complaints.

Jorge Luis Borges
Book, Past, Thinking

You May Also Like: