The Last Question, Isaac Asimov

 

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

“It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. “Not forever,” he said.

“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert.”

“That’s not forever.”

“All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. “Twenty billion years isn’t forever.”

“Will, it will last our time, won’t it?”

“So would the coal and uranium.”

“All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can’t do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t have to ask Multivac. I know that.”

“Then stop running down what Multivac’s done for us,” said Adell, blazing up. “It did all right.”

“Who says it didn’t? What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying. We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another sun.”

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov’s eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov’s eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren’t you?”

“I’m not thinking.”

“Sure you are. You’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”

“I get it,” said Adell. “Don’t shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too.”

“Darn right they will,” muttered Lupov. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”

“I know all about entropy,” said Adell, standing on his dignity.

“The hell you do.”

“I know as much as you do.”

“Then you know everything’s got to run down someday.”

“All right. Who says they won’t?”

“You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said ‘forever.'”

“It was Adell’s turn to be contrary. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.

“Never.”

“Why not? Someday.”

“Never.”

“Ask Multivac.”

“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

“No bet,” whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

---

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

“That’s X-23,” said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, “We’ve reached X-23 — we’ve reached X-23 — we’ve —-”

“Quiet, children,” said Jerrodine sharply. “Are you sure, Jerrodd?”

“What is there to be but sure?” asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the “ac” at the end of “Microvac” stood for “analog computer” in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine’s eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. “I can’t help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth.”

“Why for Pete’s sake?” demanded Jerrodd. “We had nothing there. We’ll have everything on X-23. You won’t be alone. You won’t be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded.”

Then, after a reflective pause, “I tell you, it’s a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.”

“I know, I know,” said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, “Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world.”

“I think so, too,” said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father’s youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth’s Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

“So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”

“Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”

“What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.

“Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”

“Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”

The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”

“Now look what you’ve done, ” whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

“How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered back.

“Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.”

“Go ahead,” said Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”

Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

---

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, “Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?”

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. “I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion.”

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

“Still,” said VJ-23X, “I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council.”

“I wouldn’t consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We’ve got to stir them up.”

VJ-23X sighed. “Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More.”

“A hundred billion is not infinite and it’s getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years –”

VJ-23X interrupted. “We can thank immortality for that.”

“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”

“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”

“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”

“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”

“I’m still under two hundred. –But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we’ll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?”

VJ-23X said, “As a side issue, there’s a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next.”

“A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year.”

“Most of it’s wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those.”

“Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We’ll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point.”

“We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.”

“Or out of dissipated heat?” asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

“There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC.”

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

“I’ve half a mind to,” he said. “It’s something the human race will have to face someday.”

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it’s sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, “Can entropy ever be reversed?”

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, “Oh, say, I didn’t really mean to have you ask that.”

“Why not?”

“We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree.”

“Do you have trees on your world?” asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, “See!”

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

---

Zee Prime’s mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity – but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

“I am Zee Prime,” said Zee Prime. “And you?”

“I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?”

“We call it only the Galaxy. And you?”

“We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?”

“True. Since all Galaxies are the same.”

“Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.”

Zee Prime said, “On which one?”

“I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.”

“Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.”

Zee Prime’s perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: “Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?”

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

“But how can that be all of Universal AC?” Zee Prime had asked.

“Most of it, ” had been the answer, “is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.”

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime’s wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime’s mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.”

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, “And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?”

The Universal AC said, “MAN’S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.”

“Did the men upon it die?” asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, “A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.”

“Yes, of course,” said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, “What is wrong?”

“The stars are dying. The original star is dead.”

“They must all die. Why not?”

“But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.”

“It will take billions of years.”

“I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?”

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, “You’re asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.”

And the Universal AC answered. “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

---

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, “The Universe is dying.”

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, “Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years.”

“But even so,” said Man, “eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum.”

Man said, “Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC.”

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How may entropy be reversed?”

The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Man said, “Collect additional data.”

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”

“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”

The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”

Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”

“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”

Man said, “We shall wait.”

---

“The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”

AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Man’s last mind fused and only AC existed — and that in hyperspace.

---

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

And there was light—-

Antonio Porchia, Voces / Voices

 

• Pártase de cualquier punto. Todos son iguales. Todos llevan a un punto de partida.
  • Set out from any point. They are all alike. They all lead to a point of departure.

• El árbol está solo, la nube está sola. Todo está solo cuando yo estoy solo.
  • The trees are alone, the clouds are alone. Everything is alone when I am alone.

• Mi cuerpo me separa de todo ser y de toda cosa. Nada más que mi cuerpo.
  • My body separates me from all beings and all things. Only my body.

• Sí, eso es el bien: perdonar el mal. No hay etro bien.
  • Yes, this is what is good: to forgive evil. There is no other good.

• ¿Habría este buscar eterno si lo hallado existiese?
  • Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?

• Cuando busco mi existencia, no la busco en mí.
  • When I look for my existence, I do not look for it in myself.

• Arrancamos a la vida la vida, para con ella, verla.
  • We tear life out of life to use it for looking at itself.

• Percibimos el vacío, llenándolo.
  • We become aware of the void as we fill it.

• Voy perdiendo el deseo de lo que busco, buscando lo que deseo.
  • I stop wanting what I am looking for, looking for it.

• Quien busca en su bien un bien mayor, pierde su bien.
  • One who searches for a larger good in his good, loses his good.

• Sí, es necesario padecer, aún en vano, para no vivir en vano.
  • Yes, it is necessary to suffer, even in vain, so as not to live in vain.

• Casi siempre es el miedo de ser nosotros lo que nos lleva delante del espejo.
  • Almost always is it a the fear of being ourselves that brings us to the mirror.

• Está atado a ellos y no comprendes cómo, porque ellos no están atados a ti.
  • You are fastened to them and cannot understand how, because they are not fastened to you.

• Durmiendo sueño lo que despierto sueño. Y mi soñar es continuo.
  • When I am asleep, I dream what I dream when I am awake. It’s a continuous dream.

• Herir al corazón es crearlo.
  • To wound the heart is to create it.

• Sí, trataré de ser. Porque creo que es orgullo no ser.
  • Yes, I will try to be. Because I believe that not being is arrogant.

• Quien se queda mucho consigo mismo, se envilece.
  • He who remains with himself for a long time, degrades.

• No vez el río de llanto porque la falta una lágrima tuya.
  • You do not see the river of mourning because it lacks one tear of your own.

• Sin esa tonta vanidad que es el mostrarnos y que es de todos y de todo, no veríamos nada y no existiría nada. [[]]
  • Without this ridiculous vanity that takes the form of self-display and is part of everything and everyone, we would see nothing, and nothing would exist.

• Quien hace un paraíso de un pan, de su hambre hace un infierno.
  • He who makes a paradise of his bread makes a hell of his hunger.

• Ser alguien es ser alguien solo. Ser alguien es soledad.
  • Being someone is being one alone. Being someone is loneliness.

• Las dificultades también pasan, como todo pasa, sin dificultad.
  • Troubles also pass, as everything passes, without trouble.

• El ir derecho acorta las distancias, y también la vida.
  • Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life.

• Creo que son los males del alma, el alma. Porque el alma que se cura de sus males, muere.
  • I believe that the soul consists of its sufferings. For the soul that cures its own sufferings dies.

• Se puede no deber nada devolviendo la luz al sol.
  • You can owe nothing, if you give back its light to the sun.

• El temor de separación es todo lo que une.
  • The fear of separation is all that unites.

• Si nada se nos fuera durante la vida, se nos iría la vida sin nada.
  • If we didn’t lose anything during life, we would lose life without anything.

• Cuando me hiciste otro, te dejé conmigo.
  • When you made me into another, I left you with me.

• Nadie puede no ir más allá. Y más allá hay un abismo.
  • No one can help going beyond, and beyond there is an abyss.

• Con mi encadenamiento a la tierra pago la libertad de mis ojos.
  • I am chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of my eyes.

• Quien no llena su mundo de fantasmas, se queda solo.
  • He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.

• Cuanto menos uno cree ser, más soporta. Y si cree ser nada, soporta todo.
  • The less you think you are, the more you bear. And if you think you are nothing, you bear everything.

• Las veces que me comprendo un poco, comprendo menos a los demás.
  • Times when I understand myself a little, I understand others less.

• El amor que no es todo dolor, no es todo amor.
  • The love that is not all pain is not all love.

• Si pudiera dejar todo como está, sin mover ni una estrella, ni una nube. ¡Ah, si pudiera!
  • If only I could leave everything as it is, without moving a single star or a single cloud. Oh, if only I could!

• Y si cuanto encuentras es en cuanto buscas, siempre, en vano encuentras, en vano buscas.
  • And if you find everything as soon as you look for it, you find it in vain, you look for it in vain.

• Los que dieron sus alas están tristes, de no verlas volar.
  • Those who gave away their wings are sad not to see them fly.

• Está triste, porque te abandonan y no estás caído.
  • You are sad because they abandon you and you have not fallen.

• Hombres y cosas, suben, bajan, se alejan, se acercan. Todo es una comedia de distancias.
  • Men and things rise, fall, move away, approach. Everything is a comedy of distances.

• He abandonado la indigente necesidad de vivir. Vivo sin ella.
  • I’ve abandoned the beggarly need to live. I live without it.

• A veces lo que deseo y lo que no deseo se hacen tantas concesiones que llegan a parecerse.
  • Sometimes what I want and what I don’t want make so many concessions to each other that they end up looking alike.

• Nada no es solamente nada. Es también nuestra cárcel.
  • Nothing is not only nothing. It is also our prison.

• Con las palabras que no he dicho he desarmado mis armas.
  • With the words I haven’t said I’ve disarmed my weapons.

• Iría al paraíso, pero con mi infierno; solo, no.
  • I would go to heaven, but I would take my hell; I would not go alone.

• Nada termina sin romperse, porque todo es sin fin.
  • Nothing ends without breaking, because everything is endless.

• Han dejado de engañarte, no de quererte. Y te parece que han dejado de quererte.
  • They have stopped deceiving you, not loving you. And it seems to you that they have stopped loving you.

• Quien me tiene de un hilo no es fuerte; lo fuerte es el hilo.
  • He who holds me by a thread is not strong; the thread is strong.

• Cuando yo muera, no me veré morir, por primera vez.
  • When I die, I will not see myself die, for the first time.

• Tú crees que me matas. Yo creo que te suicidas.
  • You think you kill me. I think you kill yourself.

• Mi pesadez viene de los precipicios.
  • My heaviness comes from the heights.

• Mueren cien años en un instante, lo mismo que un instante en un instante.
  • A hundred years die in a moment, just as a moment dies in a moment.

• De lo que tomo, tomo de más o de menos, no tomo lo justo. Lo justo no me sirve.
  • Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.

• Porque saben el nombre de lo que busco ¡creen que saben lo que busco!
  • Because they know the name of what I am looking for, they think they know what I am looking for!

• Una cosa, hasta no ser toda, es ruido, y todo, es silencio.
  • A thing, until it is everything, is noise, and once it is everything it is silence.

• Lo que dicen las palabras no dura. Duran las palabres. Porque las palabras son siempre las mismas y lo que dicen no es nunca lo mismo.
  • What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.

• Antes de recorrer mi camino yo era mi camino.
  • Before I traveled my road I was my road.

• Estar en compañía no es estar con alguien, sino estar en alguien.
  • To be in company is not to be with someone, but to be in someone.

• Habla con su propia palabra sólo la herida.
  • Only the wound speaks its own word.

• Se vive con la esperanza de llegar a ser un recuerdo.
  • One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.

• En último instante, toda mi vida durará un instante.
  • In its last moment, the whole of my life will last only a moment.

• Algunos, adelantándose a todos, van ganando el desierto.
  • Some, in getting ahead of everyone, are winning themselves the desert.

• A veces, de noche, enciendo una luz, para no ver.
  • Sometimes at night, I turn on the light so as not to see.

• No, no entro. Porque si entro no hay nadie.
  • No, I won’t come in. Because if I come in no one will be there.

• Qué te he dado, lo sé. Qué has recibido, no lo sé.
  • I know what I have given you, I do not know what you have received.

• La verdad tiene muy pocos amigos y los muy pocos amigos que tiene son suicidas.
  • Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides.

• Quien ama sabiendo por qué ama, no ama.
  • Whoever loves knowing why they love, doesn’t love.

• En una alma llena cabe todo y en una alma vacía no cabe nada.
  • In a full heart there is room for everything. In an empty heart there is room for nothing.

• Dirán que andas por un camino equivocado, si andas por tu camino.
  • They’ll say you’re walking down the wrong path, if you’re walking down your path.

• Quien dice la verdad, casi no dice nada.
  • One who says the truth says hardly anything.

• La condenación de un error es otro error.
  • The condemnation of an error is another error.

• El dolor está arriba, no abajo. Y todos creen que el dolor está abajo. Y todos quieren subir.
  • Pain lies above, not below. And they all think that pain is below. And they all want to rise.

• Si no levantas los ojos, creerás que eres el punto más alto.
  • If you do not raise your eyes, you will think you are the highest point.

• Lo pagado con nuestra vida nunca es caro.
  • What we pay for with our lives never costs too much.

• El hombre habla de todo y habla de todo como si el conocimiento de todo estuviese todo en él.
  • Man talks about everything, and he talks about everything as though the understanding of everything were all inside him.

• Las certidumbres sólo se alcanzan con los pies.
  • Certainties are arrived at only on foot.

• Un corazón grande se llena con muy poco.
  • A big heart can be filled with very little.

• El hombre, cuando es solamente lo que parece ser el hombre, casi no es nada.
  • Man, when he is merely what he seems to be, is almost nothing.

• Cada uno creo que sus cosas no son como todo las cosas de este mundo. Y es por ello que cada uno tiene sus cosas.
  • Everyone thinks that their things are not like all the other things in the world, and that is why everyone keeps them.

• Si eres bueno con éste, con aquél dirán que eres bueno. Si eres bueno con todos, nadie dirá que eres bueno.
  • If you are good to this one and that one, this one and that one will say you are good. If you are good to everyone, no one will say that you are good.

• Quien asciende peldaño a peldaño, se halla siempre a la altura de un peldaño.
  • If you climb up step by step, you’ll always find yourself level with a step.

• El sueño que no se alimenta de sueño desaparece.
  • The dream that doesn’t feed on dream disappears.

• He sido para mí, discípulo y maestro. Y he sido un buen discípulo, pero un mal maestro.
  • I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master.

• Las cadenas que más nos encadenan son las cadenas que hemos roto.
  • The chains that bind us most closely are the ones we have broken.

• En mi silencio sólo falta mi voz.
  • From my silence, only my voice is missing.

• No descubras, que puede no haber nada. Y nada no se vuelve a cubrir.
  • Don’t uncover, because there might be nothing. And nothing can’t be covered again.

• La tragedia del hombre es mayor cuando se la deja caer.
  • The tragedy of a man is greater when he gives it up.

• Mucho de lo he dejado de hacer en mí, sigue haciéndose en mí, solo.
  • A great deal that I no longer continue in myself continues there on its own.

• A veces estoy en un infierno y no me lamento. No encuentro de qué lamentarme.
  • Sometimes it as though I were in hell and I do not grieve. I do not find anything to grieve over.

• Te ayudaré a venir si vienes y a no venir si no vienes.
  • I will help you approach if you approach, and to keep away if you keep away.

• Mis verdades duran poco en mí: menos que las ajenas.
  • My truths do not last long in me, not as long as those that are not mine.

• Cuando me conformo con nada es cuando me conformo de todo.
  • It is when I assent to nothing that I assent to all.

• Quien ha visto vaciarse todo, casi sabe de qué se llena todo.
  • He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with.

• Las pequeñeces son lo eterno, y lo demás. todo lo demás, lo breve, lo muy breve
  • The little things are what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity.

• Desde hace mil años me pregunto: ¿qué haré ahora? Y aún no necesito responderme.
  • For a thousand years I have been asking myself, “what will I do now?” And still I need not answer.

• Mi pobreza no es total: falto yo.
  • My poverty is not complete: it lacks me.

• Dios le ha dado mucho al hombre; pero el hombre quisiera algo del hombre.
  • God has given a great deal to man, but man would like something from man.

• Todo es como los ríos, obra de las pendientes.
  • Everything is like the rivers: the work of the slopes.

• Desde que yo solo sé qué me sucede, no me sucede nada.
  • Ever since I alone have been aware of what happens to me, nothing happens to me.

• El hombre, cuando sabe que es una cosa cómica, no ríe.
  • Man, when he realizes that he is an object of comedy, does not laugh.

• Se aprende a no necesitar, necesitando.
  • One learns not to need by needing.

• Si no creyera que el sol me mira un poco, no lo miraría.
  • If I didn’t think the sun looked at me a little, I wouldn’t look at it.

• Todo juguete tiene derecho a romperse.
  • Every toy has the right to break.

• Lleve cada uno su culpa y no habrá culpables.
  • Let each carry their own guilt and there will be no guilty ones.

• Si yo te diera la vida, ¿qué podría darte?
  • You tell yourself a dream, always. And when do you dream it?

• Hablo pensando que no debiera hablar: así hablo.
  • I talk thinking that I shouldn’t talk: that is how I talk.

• Temer no humilla tanto como ser temido.
  • It is less degrading to fear than to be feared.

• En lo superficial, si no eres superficial, necesitas que te lleve de la mano alguien superficial.
  • Among the superficial, if you are not one of them, one of them has to lead you by the hand.

• No tienes nada y me darías un mundo. Te debo un mundo.
  • You have nothing and you would give me a world. I owe you a world.

• You’ll find the distance that separates you from them, by joining them.
  • You will find the distance that separates you from them by joining them.

• Tu dolor es tan grande que no debiera dolerte.
  • Your hurt is so great that it shouldn’t hurt you.

• Situado en alguna nebulosa lejana hago lo que hago, para que el equilibrio universal de que soy parte no pierda el equilibrio.
  • Located in some distant nebula I do what I do so that the universal balance I’m a part of won’t lose its balance.

• A veces hallo tan grande a la miseria que temo necesitar de ella.
  • Sometimes I find that misery is so vast that I am afraid of needing it.

• Cuanto sé no me sirve ni para saberlo.
  • All I know does not even help me to know it.

• Entra una nueva pena y las viejas penas de la casa la reciben calladas, no muertas.
  • A new pain enters and the old pains of the household receive it with their silence, not with their death.

• He llegado a un paso de todo. Y aquí me quedo, lejos de todo, un paso.
  • I have come one step away from everything and here I stay, far from everything, one step away.

• Sí, me ocupo de mí, pero he olvidado qué significa ocuparme de mí.
  • Yes, I am preoccupied with myself. But I’ve forgotten what that means.

• Todo se había quedado sin engaño, esa vez. Y esa vez tuve miedo de todo.
  • Everything had been stripped of deceptions, that time. And that time I was afraid of everything.

• El dolor no nos sigue: camina adelante.
  • Pain doesn’t follow us; it walks up front.

• El mal no lo hacen todos, pero acusa a todos.
  • Not everyone does evil, but everyone stands accused.

• Si no has de cambiar de ruta, ¿por qué has de cambiar de guía?
  • If you don’t have to change routes, why should you change guides?

• Nadie entiende que lo has dado todo. Debes dar más.
  • No one understands that you have given everything. You must give more.

• Cualquiera podría aniquilar lo infinito en un instante.
  • Anyone could annihilate the infinite in an instant.

• Has venido a este mundo que no entiende nada sin palabras, casi sin palabras.
  • Almost without words, you’ve come to this world, which understands nothing without words.

• La confesión de uno humilla a todos.
  • The confession of one humbles all.

• Cuanto no puede ser, casi siempre es un reproche a cuanto puede ser.
  • All that can’t be is almost always a reproach against what can be.

• Sí, me apartaré. Prefiero lamentarme de tu ausencia que de ti.
  • Yes, I will go. I would rather grieve over your absence than over you.

• Las sombras: unas ocultan, otras descubren.
  • The shadows: some hide, others reveal.

• No sale de lo malo quien está en él, porque teme encontrarse… con lo malo.
  • One who dwells in evil doesn’t leave, for fear of running into…evil.

• Cuando no se quiere lo imposible, no se quiere.
  • When one does not love the impossible, one does not love anything.

• Todo es un poco de oscuridad, hasta la misma luz.
  • Everything is a bit of darkness, even light itself.

• Cada vez que me despierto, comprendo que es fácil ser nada.
  • Every time I wake, I understand how easy it is to be nothing.

• Mi padre, al irse, regaló medio siglo a mi niñez.
  • My father, when he went, made my childhood a gift of half century.

• Se me abre una puerta, entro y me hallo con cien puertas cerradas.
  • A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.

• Cuando lo superficial me cansa, me cansa tanto, que para descansar necesito un abismo.
  • When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.

• Cien hombres, juntos, son la centésima parte de un hombre.
  • A hundred men together are the hundredth part of a man.

• Palabras que me dijeron en otros tiempos, las oigo hoy.
  • Words that they said to me at other times, I hear now.

• Quise alcanzar lo derecho por sendas derechas. Y así comencé a vivir equivocado.
  • I wanted to reach what was right on the right paths. And so I began to live mistaken.

• No podrá esperarte más. Porque has llegado.
  • It won’t be able to wait for you any longer. Because you have arrived.

• Se apiadan de las víctimas, las víctimas.
  • Victims take pity on victims.

• El hombre vive midiendo, y no es medida de nada. Ni de sí mismo.
  • Man lives measuring, and he’s the measure of nothing. Not even of himself.

• El niño muestra su juguete, el hombre lo esconde.
  • A child shows his toy, a man hides his.

• Mi yo ha ido alejándose de mí. Hoy es mi más lejano tú.
  • My self has been moving away from me. Today it is my farthest you.

• La flor que tienes en tus manos ha nacido hoy y ya tiene tu edad.
  • The flower you hold in your hands was born today and is already your age.

• El hombre, cuando no se lamenta, casi no existe.
  • Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists.

• Más llanto que llorar es ver llorar.
  • More tearful than crying is seeing someone cry.

• Sólo algunos llegan a nada, porque el trayecto es largo.
  • Only a few arrive at nothing, because the road is long.

• La pena humana, durmiendo, no tiene forma. Si la despiertan, toma la forma de quien la despierta,
  • Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless. If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker.

• Algunas cosas se hacen tan nuestras que las olvidamos.
  • Some things become so completely our own that we forget them.

• Todo lo que llevo atado en mí, se halla suelto, en cualquier parte.
  • Everything that I carry tied up in me, can be found anywhere else, freed.

• El mal de no creer es creer un poco.
  • Not believing has a sickness which is believing a little.

• El hombre no va a ninguna parte. Todo viene al hombre, como el mañana.
  • Man goes nowhere, everything comes to man like tomorrow.

• La tierra tiene lo que tú levantas de la tierra. Nada más tiene.
  • The earth has what you raise off the earth. It has nothing more.

• Y si llegaras a hombre, ¿a qué más podrías llegar?
  • And if you became man, what else could you become?

• No hallé como quien ser, en ninguno. Y me quedé, así: como ninguno.
  • In no one did I find who I should be like. And I stayed like that: like no one.

• Sé que tienes nada. Por ello te pido todo. Para que tengas todo.
  • I know that you have nothing. That is why I ask you for everything. So that you will have everything.

• Cuando no sea más nada, ¿no seré más nada? ¡Cómo quisiera no ser más nada cuando no sea más nada!
  • When I’m nothing more, won’t I be more nothing? How I’d like not to be more nothing when I’m nothing more!

• Si no nos dieran nada quienes no nos deben nada, !pobres de nosotros!
  • If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be!

• Un poco de ingenuidad nunca se aparta de mí. Y es ella la que me protege.
  • A little candor never leaves me. It is what protects me.

• Es más fácil levantar la caída que no dejarla caer. Déjala caer y la levantarás.
  • It is easier to pick it up fallen than not to let it fall. Let it fall and you will pick it up.

• No usar defectos. no significa no tenerlos.
  • Not using faults does not mean one does not have them.

• Me hicieron de cien años algunos minutos que se quedaron conmigo, no cien años.
  • Out of hundred years, a few moments were made that stayed with me, not a hundred years.

• Cuando no ando en las nubes, ando como perdido.
  • When I do not walk in the clouds I walk as though I were lost.

• Donde se lamentan todos, no se oyen lamentos.
  • When everyone sorrows, no one hears the sorrows.

• Trátame como debes tratarme, no como merezco ser tratado.
  • Treat me as you should treat me, not as I should be treated.

• Yo no estoy conforme de ti. Pero si tú tampoco estás conforme de ti, yo estoy conforme de ti.
  • I do not agree with you, but if you do not agree with yourself either, then I agree with you.

• No hables mal de tus males a nadie, que hay culpas de tus males en todos.
  • Do not speak harshly of your misfortunes to anyone, for everyone is partly to blame.

• Siempre busco alguna luz y siempre en la noche y no alumbrado por ninguna luz.
  • I always search for some light and always at night and never illuminated by any light.

• Para poder alcanzar ciertas alturas, no las bajo: las levanto más.
  • In order to reach some heights, I don’t lower them: I raise them higher.

• Mis cosas totalmente perdidas son aquellas que, al perderlas yo, no las encuentran otros.
  • The things I lose completely are those which, lost by me, are not found by others.

• Se daba a todos sin seguir a nadie. Y en aquel mundo, donde casi todos siguen a todos sin darse a nadie.
  • He always gave himself to everyone without following anyone. And in that world, where almost everyone follows everyone without giving themselves to anyone.

• Una cosa sana no respira.
  • Nothing that is complete breathes.

• Que tuve todo lo sé, no por lo que tuve. Lo sé porque después no tuve más.
  • I know I had everything, but not because I had it. I know because afterwards I had nothing else.

• Cuando todo está hecho, las mañanas son tristes.
  • When everything is done, the mornings are sad.

• El verdadero “está bien” me lo digo en el suelo, caído.
  • I tell myself the real “it’s fine” on the ground, having fallen.

• Hasta las flores, para emanar sus perfumes, han menester morirse un poco.
  • Even flowers, to exhale their perfume, must die a little.

• Mi voz me dice: “Así es todo”. Y el eco de mi voz me dice: “Así eres tú”.
  • My voice tells me: “That’s how it all is.” And the echo of my voice tells me: “That’s how you are.”

• Después de tanto huir de las cosas hechas, me he encontrado yo mismo una cosa hecha. Y sigo huyendo de las cosas hechas.
  • After all this running away from finished things, I ran into myself as a finished thing. And I’m still running away from finished things.

• Éramos yo y el mar. Y el mar estaba solo y solo yo. Uno de los dos faltaba.
  • It was the sea and I. And the sea was alone and I was alone. One of the two was missing.

• Cuántos, cansados de mentir, se suicidan en cualquier verdad.
  • How many, tired of lying, commit suicide into any truth.

• Y seguiré eliminando las palabras malas que puse en mi todo, aunque mi todo se quede sin palabras.
  • And I’ll go on erasing the faulty words I put in my whole, even if my whole is left without words.

• Casi no he tocado el barro y soy de barro.
  • I have hardly touched the clay and I am made of it.

• Vengo de morirme, no de haber nacido. De haber nacido me voy.
  • I come from dying, not from having been born. From having been born I am going.

• El misterio apacigua mis ojos, no los ciega.
  • The mystery brings peace to my eyes, not blindness.

• El lamentarme todos y de todo, creciendo, ha illegado a ser el lamentarme de mí mismo a mí mismo. Y crece todavía.
  • The grieving for everyone and about everything has become a grieving for myself, to myself. And it is still growing.

• Cuando tu dolor es un poco mayor que mi dolor, me siento un poco cruel.
  • When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering, I feel like I am a little cruel.

• Quiero por lo que quise, y lo que quise, no volvería a quererlo.
  • I love for the sake of what I have loved, and what I have loved I would not go back to loving.

• Cuando creo que la piedra es piedra, que la nube es nube, me hallo es un estado de inconsciencia.
  • When I believe a stone is a stone and a cloud a cloud, I am in a state of unconsciousness.

• Tenemos un mundo para cada uno, pero no tenemos un mundo para todos.
  • We have a world for each, but we don’t have a world for all.

• Viéndome, me pregunto: ¿qué pretenden verse los demás?
  • When I see myself, I wonder: what do others try to see in themselves?

• A veces creo que no existe todo lo que veo. Porque todo lo que veo es todo lo que vi. Y todo lo que vi no existe.
  • Sometimes I think that everything I see does not exist. Because everything I see is what I saw, and everything I saw does not exist.

• Hay dolores que han perdido la memoria y no recuerdan por qué son dolores.
  • There are sufferings that have lost their memory and do not remember why they are suffering.

• El mal, débil, me agita; fuerte, me calma.
  • Injury, when it is slight, upsets me; when it is strong, it calms me.

• Todos los soles se esfuerzan en encender tu llama y un microbio la extingue.
  • All the suns labor to kindle your flame and a microbe puts it out.

• En plena luz no somos ni una sombra.
  • In full light we are not even a shadow.

• El matador de almas no mata cien almas; mata una alma sola, cien veces.
  • The killer of souls does not kill a hundred souls. He kills his own soul a hundred times.

• Estoy tan poco en mí, que lo que hacen de mí, casi no me interesa.
  • I am in myself so little that what they do with me scarcely interests me.

• Te quireo como eres, pero no me digas cómo eres.
  • I love you as you are, but do not tell me how that is.

• Cerca de mí no hay más que lejanías.
  • Near me, nothing but distances.

• Mis culpas no irán a otras manos por mi culpa. No quiero otra culpa en mis manos.
  • My faults will not pass into other hands through any fault of mine. I do not want another fault on my hands.

• El corazón es un infinito de pesadísimas cadenas, encadenando puñaditos de aire.
  • The heart is an infinity of massive chains, chaining little handfuls of air.

• Otra vez mno quisiera nada. Ni una madre quisiera otra vez.
  • I do not want anything over again. Not even a mother.

• La pérdida de una cosa nos afecta hasta hasta no perderla toda.
  • The loss of a thing affects us until we have lost it altogether.

• El frío es un buen consejero, pero es frío.
  • The cold is a good counselor, but it is cold.

• Te asusta el vacío, ¡y abres más los ojos!
  • The void terrifies you, and you open your eyes wider!

• El hombre ciego lleva una estrella sobre sus hombros,
  • The blind man carries a star on his shoulders.

• Sé que anduve de lo antes breve a lo después eterno de todas las cosas, pero no sé cómo.
  • I know that I went from the brief before to the eternal afterward of everything, but I do not know how.

• Mi dignidad le pide a quien no me hace daño que no me haga daño, y a quien me hace daño no le pide nada.
  • My dignity asks him who does me no harm to do me no harm. Of him who harms me it asks nothing.

• Cuanto he perdido lo hallo a cada paso y me recuerda que lo he perdido.
  • All that I have lost I find at every step and remember that I have lost it.

• Mis partículas de tiempo juegan con la eternidad.
  • My bits of time play with eternity.

• Mi última creencia es sufrir. Y comienzo a creer que no sufro.
  • My final belief is suffering. And I begin to believe that I do not suffer.

• Si me olvidase de lo que no he sido, me olvidaría de mí.
  • If I forgot what I have not been, I would forget myself.

• Cuando me parece que escuchas mis palabras, me parecen tuyas mis palabres y escucho mis palabras.
  • When you seem to be listening to my words, they are your words, with me listening.

• Cuando ya nada me quede, no pediré más nada.
  • When I have nothing left, I will ask for no more.

• El alma de todos sólo es el alma de cada uno.
  • The soul of all is only the soul of each one.

• Me es más fácil ver todas las cosas como una cosa sola, que ver una cosa como una cosa sola.
  • It is easier for me to see everything as one thing than to see one thing as one thing.

• Todo lo que cambia, donde cambia, deja detrás de sí un aibsmo.
  • Everything that changes, where it changes, leaves behind it an abyss.

• Eres un fantoche, pero en las manos de lo infinito, que tal vez son tus manos.
  • You are a puppet, but in the hands of the infinite, which may be your own.

• El hombre es débil y cuando ejerce la profesíon de fuerte es más débil.
  • Man is weak and when he makes strength his profession he is even weaker.

• Lo que no quiero, al arrojarlo de mis manos, va a caer al alcance de mis manos.
  • When I throw away what I don’t want, it will fall within reach.

• Ellos también son como yo, me digo. Y así me defiendo de ellos. Y así me defiendo de mí.
  • They are like me, I tell myself. And in that way I protect myself against them. And in that way I protect myself against myself.

• Mis muertos siguen sufriendo el dolor de la vida en mí.
  • My dead go on suffering in me the pain of living.

• Cuando no creo en nada, no quisiera encontrarme contigo, cuando no crees en nada.
  • When I believe in nothing, I do not want to meet you when you believe in nothing.

• A veces creo el mal es todo y que el bien es sólo un bello deseo del mal.
  • Sometimes I believe that evil is everything, and that good is only a beautiful desire for evil.

• Como sólo me preparo para lo que debiera sucederme, no me hallo preparado para lo que me sucede. Nunca.
  • Since I only prepare for what ought to happen to me, I am never prepared for what does. Never.

• Si pudieras salir de tus penas y salieras de tus penas, ¿sabrías adonde ir fuera de tus penas?
  • If you could escape your sufferings and did so, where would you go outside of them?

• Si yo fuera quien se conduce a sí mismo, no iría por la senda que conduce a morir.
  • If I were someone who led himself, I would not take the path that leads to death.

• Lo que sé lo soporto con lo que no sé.
  • I hold up what I know with what I do not know.

• Mi nombre, más que llamarme, me recuerda mi nombre.
  • My name, far more than it names me, reminds me of my name.

• Cuando rompo algunas de las cadenas que me encadenan, siento que me disminuyo.
  • When I break any of the chains that bind me, I feel that I make myself smaller.

• Llevo mis manos vacía, por lo que hubo en mis manos.
  • I keep my hands empty for the sake of what I have had in them.

• Mientras creemos tener algún valor, nos hacemos daño.
  • As long as we think we are worth something, we wrong ourselves.

• ¿Y para qué debo arrepentirme de lo que he hecho, si no puedo dejar de hacer lo que hago, que es lo que he hecho?
  • And why should I regret what I have done, when I cannot help doing what I do, which is what I have done?

• No llora quien no encuentra uns fuente donde verter su llanto.
  • Those who do not find a fountain through which to pour their tears, do not cry.

• Si yo diera la vida, ¿qué podría darte?
  • If I were to give you life, what else could I give you?

• El mal que no he hecho, ¡cuánto mal ha hecho!
  • The harm that I have not done, what harm it has done!

• Yo le pediría algo más a este mundo, si tuviese algo más este mundo.
  • I would ask something more of this world, if it had something more.

• La pobreza ajena me basta para sentirme pobre; la mía no me basta.
  • My neighbor’s poverty makes me feel poor; my own does not.

• Vemos por algo que nos ilumina; por algo que no vemos.
  • We see by means of something which illumines us, which we do not see.

• Quien ha visto con los ojos abiertos, puede volver a ver, pero con los ojos cerrados.
  • Who has seen with their eyes open can see again, but with the eyes closed.

• Lo antes que yo y lo después que yo casi se han unido, casi son uno solo, casi se han quedado sin yo.
  • That which came before me and that which comes after me have almost come together, they have almost become one thing, they have have almost been left without me.

• En el sueño eterno, la eternidad es lo mismo que un instante. Quizá yo vuelva dentro de un instante.
  • In the eternal dream, eternity is the same as an instant. Maybe I will come back in an instant.

• Lo que me digo, ¿quién lo dice?
  • What I say to myself – who says it? Who does he say it to?

• Estoy en el ayer, en el hoy. ¿Y en mañana? En el mañana estuve.
  • I am in yesterday, today. And tomorrow? In tomorrow I was.

• Todo es nada, pero después, Después de haberlo sufrido todo.
  • Everything is nothing, but afterwards. After having suffered everything.

• Cuando tú y la verdad me hablan, no escucho a la verdad. Te escucho a ti.
  • When you and the truth speak to me, I do not listen to the truth. I listen to you.

• Hieres y volverás a herir. Porque hieres y te apartas. No acompañas a la herida.
  • You wound and you will wound again. Because you wound and then you go away. You do not stay with the wound.

• Prefiero al mejor de los refugios las puertas de cualquier refugio.
  • To the best of refuges I prefer their doorways.

• Lo importante y lo no importante no son iguales sólo en sus comienzos.
  • The important and the unimportant are the same only at the start.

• Pequeño es aquel que para mostrarse esconde.
  • He is small who hides in order to show himself.

• Siempre me fue más fácil amar que elogiar.
  • It was always easier for me to love than to praise.

• The deep in me is everything. But it is everything without me. Because everything that is deep, is only everything.

• Convince me, but without convictions. Convictions no longer convince me.

• Knowing how to die costs a lifetime.

• We don’t forgive being as we are.

• When I’m content with nothing is when I’m content with everything.

• When I break any of the chains that bind me I feel that I make myself smaller.

• Don’t speak to me. I want to be with you.

• From what I awaited, came my habit of waiting.

• Reason is lost reasoning.

• There are those fallen who don’t get up so as not to fall again.

• The deep, seen with depth, is surface.

• What I did or didn’t do, I think it’s over now. And what I will or will not do, I think is also over.

• If I think about what life is, I believe life is a miracle. And if I think about what a miracle is, I don’t believe in it.

• I have found the most beautiful side of the flowers in the fallen flowers.

• Love, when it fits inside a flower, is infinite.

• One who walks from fire to fire dies from the cold.

• If I were told that I have died or that I haven’t been born, I wouldn’t stop thinking about it.

• And if nothing is repeated in the same way, all things are last things.

• My God, I have almost never believed in you, and yet I have always loved you.

• I live, to get out of what I live through.

• When I say what I say it’s because what I say has overcome me.

• The children whom nobody leads by the hand are the children who know they are children.

• One man alone is too much for one man alone.

• When I have ceased to exist, I won’t ever have existed.

• Distances did nothing. It’s all here.