Zitate von Jorge Luis Borges

zitiert in: Borges, J.L. und Osvaldo Ferrari: Lesen ist Denken mit fremdem Gehirn - Gespräche über Bücher & Borges, Arche 1990, Übers. Gisbert Haefs, S.84. Paraphrase eines Ausspruchs von Schopenhauer: "LESEN heißt mit einem fremden Kopfe, statt des eigenen, denken." Parerga und Paralipomena II, HaffmansTaschenBuch 1991, S.438

Die Zeit und J.W. Dunne, 1940, aus: Borges, Eine neue Widerlegung der Zeit, Frankfurt am Main 2003

Unser armer Individualismus, in: Inquisitionen, Fischer-TB 1992, Übers. Gisbert Haefs, S. 43

Jorge Luis Borges, Autobiographischer Essay, übersetzt aus dem Englischen von Christiane Meyer-Clason, in: Borges Lesen, Fischer-TB, 1991, S.61 (vgl. books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=nQRJAAAAYAAJ&q=achthunderttausend).
Es handelt sich um Borges' "Gedicht von den Gaben", in: J.L. Borges, Borges und ich, Fischer-TB, 1993, S.49:
"[...] von Gottes planendem Genie, // da er mir, groß in seiner Ironie // die Bücher und die Nacht zum Leben gab." - volltext.online-merkur.de http://volltext.online-merkur.de/?m=v&link=/daten/www.online-merkur.de/mr_1962_04_0321-0324.pdf&session=747297512D84F4D43B9A529E7132943E
"esta declaración de la maestría // de Dios, que con magnífica ironía // me dio a la vez los libros y la noche." - Poema de los dones (1960)

"Poetry" (1977)

"The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923)
Kontext: Some days past I have found a curious confirmation of the fact that what is truly native can and often does dispense with local color; I found this confirmation in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were especially Arabian; for him they were part of reality, he had no reason to emphasize them; on the other hand, the first thing a falsifier, a tourist, an Arab nationalist would do is have a surfeit of camels, caravans of camels, on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned: he knew he could be an Arab without camels. I think we Argentines can emulate Mohammed, can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local color.

No estoy seguro de que yo exista, en realidad. Soy todos los autores que he leído, toda la gente que he conocido, todas las mujeres que he amado. Todas las ciudades que he visitado, todos mis antepasados...
Quelle: El Pais, 1981 http://elpais.com/diario/1981/09/26/ultima/370303206_850215.html; translation: The Guardian, 2008 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/10/jorgeluisborges

"The Threatened", The Book of Sand [El Libro de arena] (1975)

"The Meeting in a Dream"
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Book of Imaginary Beings (1957), as translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni
Kontext: It is universally held that the unicorn is a supernatural being and of auspicious omen; so say the odes, the annals, the biographies of worthies, and other texts whose authority is unimpeachable. Even village women and children know that the unicorn is a lucky sign. But this animal does not figure among the barnyard animals, it is not always easy to come across, it does not lend itself to zoological classification. Nor is it like the horse or bull, the wolf or deer. In such circumstances we may be face to face with a unicorn and not know for sure that we are. We know that a certain animal with a mane is a horse and that a certain animal with horns is a bull. We do not know what the unicorn looks like.

"The Divine Comedy" (1977)
Kontext: Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

"Baruch Spinoza", as translated in Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (1989) by Yirmiyahu Yovel
Kontext: Time carries him as the river carries
A leaf in the downstream water.
No matter. The enchanted one insists
And shapes God with delicate geometry.
Since his illness, since his birth,
He goes on constructing God with the word.
The mightiest love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
Kontext: Who are the inventors of Tlön? The plural is inevitable, because the hypothesis of a lone inventor — an infinite Leibniz laboring away darkly and modestly — has been unanimously discounted. It is conjectured that this brave new world is the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebraists, moralists, painters, geometers... directed by an obscure man of genius. Individuals mastering these diverse disciplines are abundant, but not so those capable of inventiveness and less so those capable of subordinating that inventiveness to a rigorous and systematic plan. This plan is so vast that each writer's contribution is infinitesimal. At first it was believed that Tlön was a mere chaos, and irresponsible license of the imagination; now it is known that it is a cosmos and that the intimate laws which govern it have been formulated, at least provisionally. Let it suffice for me to recall that the apparent contradictions of the Eleventh Volume are the fundamental basis for the proof that the other volumes exist, so lucid and exact is the order observed in it.