“I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.”
Variant translation: I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left... Whosoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished, should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
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Jorge Luis Borges 213
Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator… 1899–1986Related quotes
Section III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part VI
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.1, p. 23.
Religious Wisdom
“You cannot insult a man more atrociously than by refusing to believe he is suffering.”
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
This is how Christians treat the autocrat of the universe.
Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 215 from Frederick to Voltaire (1776-03-19)
“A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”
“6384. He that would please all, and himself too,
Undertakes what none could ever do.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)