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Jorge Luis Borges

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Jorge Luis Borges
Borges in the Hotel Beaux, Paris, 1968
Borges in the Hotel Beaux, Paris, 1968
Born(1899-08-24)August 24, 1899
Buenos Aires, Argentina
DiedJune 14, 1986(1986-06-14) (aged 86)
Geneva, Switzerland
Occupationwriter, poet, critic, librarian

Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer. He was best known in the English-speaking world for his short stories and fictive essays. Borges was also a poet, critic, translator and man of wisdom.

He was influenced by authors such as Dante Alighieri, Miguel de Cervantes, Franz Kafka, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Schopenhauer and G. K. Chesterton.

Quotations

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  • "The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." — (dogma of a fictional religion in "Hakim, the masked dyer of Merv". Part of this quote is also attributed to a heresiarch of Uqbar in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius".)
  • "The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry."
  • "I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as 'The Masses'. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time." — Introduction to The Book of Sand
  • "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."

Other websites

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