“I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.”

— Jorge Luis Borges , book Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

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Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)

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Jorge Luis Borges 213

Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator… 1899–1986

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“One of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had stated that mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of man.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Variant translation: Mirrors and copulation are obscene, for they increase the numbers of mankind.
Cf. "Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935)
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)

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“The result would be an Encyclopedia of Error.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Letter to Mary Gladstone (1881)
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