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About this quote

What does it mean?
Borges suggests understanding deepens through absence, implying love is grasped better when missing.
In plain terms
You understand love better without it.
What can you take from it?
Loss clarifies value.

Where it applies

  • personal reflection
  • romantic loss
  • self-analysis

Putting it to work

  • reflect on what you lost
  • value what is absent

Questions to consider

  • What do you understand better without?
  • Does loss teach or just hurt?

Another view

Absence may also breed bitterness rather than understanding.

More from Jorge Luis Borges

  1. Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment - the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

    Permalink to quote #134
  2. Death (or its allusion) makes men precious and pathetic. They are moving because of their phantom condition; every act they execute may be their last; there is…

    Permalink to quote #136
  3. Yo no hablo de venganzas ni perdones, el olvido es la unica venganza y el unico perdon.

    Permalink to quote #133

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