“Symbols, by their very nature, conceal as well as indicate, damn them!”
Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 1 (p. 29)
“Razed the garden, profaned the chalices and the altars, by horse the Huns broke into the Monastic library and they tore the incomprehensible books and they vituperated them and they burnt them, fearing their symbols and characters might be concealing secret blasphemies against their God, who was an iron scimitar…”
Arrasado el jardín, profanados los cálices y las aras, entraron a caballo los hunos en la biblioteca monástica y rompieron los libros incomprensibles y los vituperaron y los quemaron, acaso temerosos de que las letras encubrieran blasfemias contra su dios, que era una cimitarra de hierro.
The Theologians [Los Teólogos]
Original
Arrasado el jardín, profanados los cálices y las aras, entraron a caballo los hunos en la biblioteca monástica y rompieron los libros incomprensibles y los vituperaron y los quemaron, acaso temerosos de que las letras encubrieran blasfemias contra su dios, que era una cimitarra de hierro.
The Aleph and Other Stories
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Jorge Luis Borges 213
Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator… 1899–1986Related quotes
Volume II, part III, chapter V (1846).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)
“He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.”
Sydney Smith
(1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Vol. I, ch. 11
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)
Walter Raleigh (professor)
(1861–1922) British academic
p. 28 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b325850;view=1up;seq=34
Six Essays on Johnson (1910)
Walter Hilton
(1340–1396) English Augustinian mystic.
Book I, ch. 38 (p. 43)
The Ladder of Perfection (1494)
“The waters run that we might drink of them, but they are also symbols of the futility of man.”
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 12
Context: All things in the world are created for man, yet all have two purposes. The waters run that we might drink of them, but they are also symbols of the futility of man. They reflect our lives in rushing beauty, birthed in the purity of the mountains. As babes they babble and run, gushing and growing as they mature into strong young rivers. Then they widen and slow until at least they meander, like old men, to join with the sea.
Frances Wright
(1795–1852) American activist
Lecture III: Of the more Important Divisions and Essential Parts of Knowledge
A Course of Popular Lectures (1829)
Context: I must intreat your patience — your gentle hearing. I am not going to question your opinions. I am not going to meddle with your belief. I am not going to dictate to you mine. All that I say is, examine; enquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the ground of your opinions, the for and the against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you…
But your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry — tell you not to read certain books; not to listen to certain people; to beware of profane learning; to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors. By their own creed, you hold your reason from their God. Go! ask them why he gave it.
