Umberto Eco Quotes - Page 14

Quotes about:

• "You cannot believe what you are saying." "Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal nymph, only to plumb with his words the depths of passion. The philosopher tests the coldness of his gaze, to see how far he can undermine the fortress of bigotry."

  Umberto Eco

  Believe, Passion, Nymphs

  "The Island of the Day Before". Book by Umberto Eco, 1994.

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• I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.

  Umberto Eco

  Together, Stories, Way

  "The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana". Book by Umberto Eco, 2005.

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• But why do some people support [the heretics]?" "Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power." "Is that why the church of Rome accuses all its adversaries of heresy?" "That is why, and that is also why it recognizes as orthodoxy any heresy it can bring back under its own control or must accept because the heresy has become too strong.

  Umberto Eco

  Strong, Rome, People

  Umberto Eco (2014). “The Name of the Rose”, p.218, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Contemporary societies have lost the sense of the feast but have kept the obscure drive for it.

  Umberto Eco

  Food, Cooking, Obscure

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• The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.

  Umberto Eco

  Killing Each Other, Killing, Century

  "Umberto Eco: 'It's culture, not war, that cements European identity'". Interview with Gianni Riotta - La Stampa, www.theguardian.com. January 26, 2012.

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• But laughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh.

  Umberto Eco

  Laughter, Weakness, Flesh

  Umberto Eco (1995). “Name of the Rose”, p.486, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.

  Umberto Eco

  Simple, Illustration, Cities

  Umberto Eco (1995). “Name of the Rose”, p.215, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Every thing thinks, but according to its complexity. If this is so, then stones also think...and this stone thinks only I stone, I stone, I stone. But perhaps it cannot even say I. It thinks: Stone, stone, stone... God enjoys being All, as this stone enjoys being almost nothing, but since it knows no other way of being, it is pleased with its own way, eternally satisfied with itself.

  Umberto Eco

  Thinking, Stones, Way

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• It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion.

  Umberto Eco

  Justification, Hard

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• It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio.

  Umberto Eco

  Attention, Use, Television

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• There must be a connection between the lust for power and impotentia coeundi. I liked Marx, I was sure that he and his Jenny had made love merrily. You can feel it in the easy pace of his prose and in his humor. On the other hand, I remember remarking one day in the corridors of the university that if you screwed Krupskaya all the time, you'd end up writing a lousy book like Materialism and Empiriocriticism.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Writing, Hands

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• A book is a fragile creature. It suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Hands, Suffering

  Umberto Eco (1994). “The Name of the Rose”, p.42, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.

  Umberto Eco

  Believe, Stories, Reason

  Umberto Eco (2014). “The Name of the Rose”, p.546, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.

  Umberto Eco

  Stupid, Poet, Great Poet

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• The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.

  Umberto Eco

  Age, Enlightenment, Reason

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• Our most noted satirists are true columnists and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented exposé.

  Umberto Eco

  Opinion, Columnists, Wells

  "Don't smile when you say that" by Umberto Eco, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2002.

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• The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, May

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• Libraries can take the place of God.

  Umberto Eco

  Library

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• Terrorism [is] a biological consequence of the multinationals, just as a day of fever is the reasonable price of an effective vaccine . . . The conflict is between great powers, not between demons and heroes. Unhappily, therefore, is the nation that finds the "heroes" underfoot, especially if they still think in religious terms and involve the population in their bloody ascent to an uninhabited paradise.

  Umberto Eco

  Religious, Hero, Thinking

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• For what I saw at the abbey then (and will now recount) caused me to think that often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also that inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges. Truly, a circle conceived by the Devil. God preserve us.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Thinking, Circles

  "The Name Of The Rose". Book by Umberto Eco, 1980.

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• Whoever reflects on four things I would be better if he were never born: that which is above, that which is below, that which is before, that which is after.

  Umberto Eco

  Would Be, Four, Born

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• The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.

  Umberto Eco

  Running, Causes, Facts

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.210, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: "But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primogenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?

  Umberto Eco

  Omnipotence, Differences, Choices

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• The Void is not being, but not being cannot be, ergo the Void cannot be. The reasoning was sound, because it denied the Void while granting that it could be conceived. In fact, we can quite easily conceive things that do not exist. Can a chimera, buzzing in the Void, devour second intentions? No, because chimeras do not exist, in the Void no buzzing can be heard, and intentions are mental things - an intended pear does not nourish us. And yet I can think of a chimera even if it is chimerical, namely, if it is not. And the same with the Void.

  Umberto Eco

  Thinking, Sound, Doe

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• Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend.

  Umberto Eco

  Dark, Shadow, World

  "The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana". Book by Umberto Eco, 2004.

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