Jorge Luis Borges: Frases en inglés (página 10)

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
Variante: In his lifetime, he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen; once dead, he is not even the ghost he was then.

"The Library of Babel" ["La Biblioteca de Babel"] (1941) First lines

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
Variante: There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

Hay un concepto que es el corruptor y el desatinador de los otros. No hablo del mal cuyo limitado imperio es la ética; hablo del infinito.
"Avatars of the Tortoise"
Variant translations:
One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
There is a concept that is the corruptor and dazzler of others. I'm not talking about the evil whose limited empire is the ethic; I'm talking about infinity.
There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.
Discussion (1932)

El hecho ocurrió en el mes de febrero de 1969, al norte de Boston, en Cambridge. No lo escribí inmediatamente porque mi primer propósito fue olvidarlo, para no perder la razón.
"The Other" ["El Otro"], The Book of Sand (1975)

Universal History of Infamy [Historia universal de la infamia] (1935) Preface

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

"The South". Cf. "The Man on the Threshold", in The Aleph (1949)
tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Ficciones (1944)
Variante: On the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polished by generations of mankind.

He cometido el peor pecado que uno puede cometer. No he sido feliz.
"El Remordimiento" [Remorse] in La moneda de hierro [The Iron Coin], as quoted in Borges at Eighty : Conversations (1982) edited by Willis Barnstone, also in Hispanic Literature Criticism : Allende to Jiménez (1994), p. 298

"The Nightingale of Keats"
Other Inquisitions (1952)

"Dead Men’s Dialogue"
Dreamtigers (1960)

"Narrative Art and Magic" ["El arte narrativo y la magia"]
Discussion (1932)

"The Library of Babel" (1941); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)

"The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)

Variant translation: It seemed incredible that this day, a day without warnings or omens, might be that of my implacable death.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

"Parable of Cervantes and Don Quixote" (January 1955)
Tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Dreamtigers (1960)
Variante: In the beginning of literature there is myth, as there is also in the end of it.

"Nathaniel Hawthorne"
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Preface; Variant translations:
It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books — setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them... A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books.
The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary . . . More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)