Quotes by Argentinian Authors - Page 2

. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.Suárez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658
Jorge Luis Borges
You gotta dig through the shit to get to the gold.
Diego Ramos
Now that I think about it, it seems to me that’s what Idiocy is: the ability to be enthusiastic all the time about anything you like, so that a drawing on the wall does not have to be diminished by the memory of the frescoes of Giotto in Padua.
Julio Cortázar
Anyone who finds himself incapable of grasping the complexities of a work hides his withdrawal behind the most superficial pretext because he has not gotten past the surface.
Julio Cortázar
Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference betweenholding a handand imprisoning a soul;You learn that love does not equal sex,and that company does not equal security,and you start to learn….That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up highand open eyes,and you learn to build all roads on today,because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans…and the future has its own way of falling apart in half.And you learn that if it’s too mucheven the warmth of the sun can burn.So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul,instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you.And you learn that you can actually bear hardship,that you are actually strong,and you are actually worthy,and you learn and learn…and so every day.Over time you learn that being with someonebecause they offer you a good future,means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past.Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing youcan bring you all happiness.Over time you learn that if you are with a persononly to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again.Over time you learn that real friends are fewand whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later,will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of angercontinue hurting throughout a lifetime.Over time you learn that everyone can apologize,but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls.Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshlyit is very likely that your friendship will never be the same.Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends,you cry for those you let go.Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable.Over time you realize that whoever humiliatesor scorns another human being, sooner or laterwill suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold.Over time you learn to build your roads on today,because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist.Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happencauses the finale to be different form expected.Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future,but the moment you were living just that instant.Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you,you’ll yearn for those who walked away.Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness,say you love, say you miss, say you need,say you want to be friends, since beforea grave, it will no longer make sense.But unfortunately, only over time…
Jorge Luis Borges
All things left her, allBut one. Her highborn courtlinessAccompanied her to the end,Beyond the rapture and its eclipse,In a way like an angel's. Of ElviraThe first thing that I saw - such years ago -Was her smile and also it was the last.
Jorge Luis Borges
There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again,There is a street close by forbidden to my feet,There's a mirror that's seen me for the very last time,There is a door that I have locked till the end of the world.Among the books in my library (I have them before me)There are some that I shall never open now.This summer I complete my fiftieth year;Death is gnawing at me ceaselessly.
Jorge Luis Borges
For youth, sexual love is whim; for the aged, luxury.
Bill Gaede
It's strange how easily we assume that others must be going in the same direction as us.
Alberto J. Roemmers
Art is fire plus algebra.
Jorge Luis Borges
Each man must administer his hatred cautiously. Mine is equitable. I distribute it evenly among those who are frozen in the past and those who perspire in the present. Because while the former are hemorrhoidal in their sensibility, the latter are constipated in the brain. And they complement each other by both betraying the law of life that demands the immediate defecation of all useless detritus, be it antiquated illusion or contemporary cowardice.
Juan Filloy
They say you fly when you die.Basically, when you die, your spirit leaves your body. Actually, at first you can see all your life, like, reflected in a magic mirror. Then you start floating like a ghost. You can see anything happening around you, you can hear everything, but you can’t communicate with the world of the living.Then you see these lights, all these different lights, of all different colors. These lights are the doors that pull you into other planes of existence, but most people actually like this world so much that they don’t want to be taken away… So the whole thing turns into a bad trip and the only way out is to get reincarnated.It’s funny you know, DMT only lasts for six minutes but it really seems like eternity. It’s the same chemical that your brain receives when you die. It’s a little bit like, dying would be the ultimate trip.
Gaspar Noé
We must not be too prodigal with our angels; they are the last divinities we harbor, and they might fly away.
Jorge Luis Borges
I recommend writing standing up from time to time. It's easier to dance when you finish writing.
Diego Ramos
The American dream is actually Cuban.
Andrés Aloi
I came to abominate my body, I came to sense that two eyes, two hands, two lungs are as monstrous as two faces.
Jorge Luis Borges
The image of the Lord has been replaced by a mirror.
Jorge Luis Borges
When a writer dies, he becomes his books.
Jorge Luis Borges
All our lives we postpone everything that can be postponed; perhaps we all have the certainty, deep inside, that we are immortal and sooner or later every man will do everything, know all there is to know.
Jorge Luis Borges
At the railroad station he noted that he still had thirty minutes. He quickly recalled that in a cafe on the Calle Brazil (a few dozen feet from Yrigoyen's house) there was an enormous cat which allowed itself to be caressed as if it were a disdainful divinity. He entered the cafe. There was the cat, asleep. He ordered a cup of coffee, slowly stirred the sugar, sipped it (this pleasure had been denied him in the clinic), and thought, as he smoothed the cat's black coat, that this contact was an illusion and that the two beings, man and cat, were as good as separated by a glass, for man lives in time, in succession, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.
Jorge Luis Borges
The psychological effects of the sun are strange: it had not yet appeared over the horizon and we already felt comforted, just imagining the heat it would bring.
Ernesto Che Guevara
There are problems humans cannot solve, to wit: density dependent birth rates, loss of genetic diversity, the overturning of his population pyramid, traveling to the nearest star, and the extinction of Man.
Bill Gaede
Night is a world lit by itself
Antonio Porchia
Histories, chronologies and almanacs offer us the illusion of progress, even though, over and over again, we are given proof that there is no such thing.
Alberto Manguel
The story of two dreams is a coincidence, a line drawn by chance, like the shapes of lions or horses that are sometimes formed by clouds.
Jorge Luis Borges
We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla is a social reformer, who takes up arms responding to the angry protests of the people against their oppressors, and who fights to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and poverty.
Ernesto Che Guevara
Individuals start to see themselves reflected in their work and to understand their full status as human beings through the object created, through the work accomplished. Work no longer entails surrendering a part of one's being in the form of labor power sold, which no longer belongs to the individual, but becomes an expression of oneself, a contribution to the common life in which one is reflected, the fulfillment of one's social duty.
Ernesto Che Guevara
Why is it that drama always starts late? Whereas comedy always seems to have started already.
César Aira
There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others.I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite.
Jorge Luis Borges
...when one is alone it is impossible to be dead.
Adolfo Bioy Casares
He [Omar Khayyam] is an atheist, but knows how to interpret in orthodox style the most difficult passages of the Koran; for every educated man is a theologian and faith is not a requisite.
Jorge Luis Borges
Let us draw from the crib the joy and deep peace that Jesus comes to bring to the world.
Pope Francis
I carried out my plan because I felt The Chief had some fear of those of my race, of those uncountable forebears whose culmination lies in me. I wished to prove to him that a yellow man could save his armies.
Jorge Luis Borges
Q. How soon do you expect Argentina to be returned to democratic government?A. We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people's will, but nevertheless we still think we are within a democracy.
Roberto Eduardo Viola
Criticism is just someone else’s opinion. Even people who are experts in their fields are sometimes wrong. It is up to you to choose whether to believe some of it, none of it, or all of it. What you think is what counts.
Rodolfo Costa
Some give the impression they go on living only because it's a habit they cannot shake
Ernesto Che Guevara
you have to live by fighting each other, it's the law, the only way that things areworth while but it hurts
Julio Cortázar
If you feel alone, and if your heart is pure and your eyes still shine with the wonder of a child's, perhaps as you read these pages you'll find that the stars are smiling on you once more, that you can hear them as though they were five hundred million little bells.
A.G. Roemmers
We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.
Pope Francis
Will we let ourselves become a Church that calls and welcomes sinners with open arms, that gives courage and hope, or are we a Church closed in on herself? Are we a Church where the love of God dwells, where one cares for the other, where one prays for the other?A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do? God says to you, Do not be afraid of holiness; do not be afraid to aim high, to let yourself be loved and purified by God; do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every Christian is called to sanctity...; and sanctity does not consist especially in doing extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, it is saving faith in his action that allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the glory of God and as a service to our neighbor.
Pope Francis
For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political, or philosophical one. God shows the poor "his first mercy." This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, because we are called to have "this mind...which was in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor, which is understood as a "special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness." This option - as Benedict XVI has taught - "is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty." This is why I want a Church that is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the center of the Church's pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom that God wishes to share with us through them.
Pope Francis
The light of love proper to faith can illumine the question of our own time-concerning truth. Truth, nowadays, is often reduced to the subjective authenticity of the individual, valid only to the life of the individual. A common truth intimidates us, for we identify it with the intransigent demands of totalitarian systems. But if truth is a truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal encounter with the Other and with others, then it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals and become part of the common good. As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual. Since it is born of love, it can penetrate to the heart, to the personal core of each man and woman. Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent but grows in respectful coexistences with others. One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, because believers know that, rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is truth that embraces and possesses us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and dialogue with all.
Pope Francis
As religious leaders, we are called to be true "people of dialogue," to cooperate in building peace not as intermediaries but as authentic mediators. Intermediaries seek to give everyone a discount ultimately in order to gain something for themselves. However, the mediator is one who retains nothing for himself but rather spends himself generously until he is consumed, knowing that the only gain is peace. Each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths to dialogue and not by constructing new walls! Let us dialogue and meet one another in order to establish a culture of dialogue in the world, a culture of encounter.
Pope Francis
We cannot become starched Christians, those overeducated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea. No! We must become courageous Christians and go in search of the people who are the very flesh of Christ! ... This is the [issue]: the flesh of Christ, touching the flesh of Christ, taking upon ourselves this suffering for the poor.
Pope Francis
Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain.
Pope Francis
There is a Marian "style" to the Church's work of evangelization. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. in her we see that humility and tenderness ar enot virtues of the weak but of the strong, who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves. Contemplating Mary, we realize that she who praised God for "bringing down the mighty from their thrones" and "sending the rich away empty" (Luke 1:52-53) is also the one who brings a homely warmth to our pursuit of justice. She is also the one who carefully keeps "all these things, pondering them in heart" (Luke 2:19).Mary is able to recognize the traces of God's Spirit in events great and small. She constantly contemplates the mystery of God in our world, in human history, and in our daily lives. She is the woman of prayer and work in Nazareth, and she is also Our Lady of Help, who sets out from her town "with haste" (Luke 1:39) to be of service to others. This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelization.
Pope Francis
Near me nothing but distances.
Antonio Porchia
When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.
Antonio Porchia
Set yourself free. Realize you already have everything you need and don’t need anything else.
Mabel Katz
But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over.
Jorge Luis Borges
A sudden and unforseen swinging of his head alarmed all present. He seemed to be trying to scare off a flock of vampires biting into his brain.
Juan Filloy
The stories that unfold in the space of a writer's study, the objects chosen to watch over a desk, the books selected to sit on the shelves, all weave a web of echoes and reflections of meanings and affections, that lend a visitor the illusion that something of the owner of this space lives on between these walls, even if the owner is no more.
Alberto Manguel
For the one who writes it . . . a story is like a mirror.
Sylvia Iparraguirre
The modern story begun, one might say, with Edgar Allan Poe, which proceeds inexorably, like a machine destined to accomplish its mission with the maximum economy of means.
Julio Cortázar
As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. (...) You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert.
Julio Cortázar
Happy are those who choose, those who accept being chosen, the handsome heroes, the handsome saints, the perfect escapists.
Julio Cortázar
God waits for our permission and doesn’t invade our privacy as we do with others.Everybody has free choice.
Mabel Katz
If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell.
Jorge Luis Borges
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
Jorge Luis Borges
--And the good thing about feeling happy, you know, Valentin? ...It's that you think it's forever, that one's never ever going to feel unhappy again.
Manuel Puig