Quotes from Umberto Eco

most of them won't have a book in the house, though, when they have to, they'll talk about the latest book that's selling millions of copies around the world. Our readers may not read books, but they are fascinated by great eccentric painters who sell for billions.

And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?

I sought peace in everything, but never was I happier than in a corner with a book

Privado de vuestra mirada soy ciego pues no me veis, mudo pues no me hablàis, desmemoriado pues de mì no acordàis

To be intensely educated about the horror of sin and then to be conquered by it. I tell myself that it must be prohibition that kindles fantasy

Quase inebriado,gozava então da sua presença nas coisas que via,e através delas desejava-a,satisfazendo-me à vista delas.E,no entanto,sentia uma dor,porque ao mesmo tempo sofria por uma ausência,mesmo sendo feliz com tantos fantasmas de uma presença.

The maximum of confusion achieved with the maximum of order: it seems a sublime calculation.

I perdenti, come gli autodidatti, hanno sempre conoscenze più vaste dei vincenti, se vuoi vincere devi sapere una cosa sola e non perdere tempo a saperle tutte, il piacere dell'erudizione è riservato ai perdenti.

For architecture, among all the arts, is the one that most boldly tries to reproduce in its rhythm the order of the universe, which the ancients called kosmos, that is to say ornate, since it is like a great animal on whom there shine the perfection and the proportion of all its members.

Hypotyposis is the rhetorical effect by which words succeed in rendering a visual scene.

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro" (T. Kempis)

Pengetahuan tidak hanya terdiri atas mengenai apa yang harus dan dapat kita lakukan, tetapi juga tahu apa yang mungkin tidak usah dilakukan (Kata Willian dalam The Name of the Rose)

I was upset. I had always believed logic was a universal weapon and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed.

But this lump does not absolve me, because I got it through heedlessness, not though courage. I run my tongue over my lip and what do I do? I write. But bad literature brings no redemption.

Two very beautiful naked girls are crouched facing each other. They touch each other sensually, they kiss each other's breasts lightly, with the tip of the tongue.

in a story there is always a reader, and this reader is a fundamental ingredient not only of the process of storytelling but also of the tale itself. Today

Simple mechanisms do not love.

The Internet gives us everything and forces us to filter it not by the workings of culture, but with our own brains. This risks creating six billion separate encyclopedias, which would prevent any common understanding whatsoever.

Not that he felt any particular love for himself, but his dislike of others induced him to make the best of his own company.

But if Mother Theresa went to collect all the prizes she is awarded, the death rate in Calcutta would soar.

Sir, be proud: today you came close to a happy death; and behave in the future with the same nonchalance, knowing that the soul dies with the body. Go then to death after having savored life. We are animals among animals, all children of matter, save that we are the more disarmed. But since, unlike animals, we know we must die, let us prepare for that moment by enjoying the life that has been given us by chance and for chance.

If a student works rigorously, no topic is truly foolish, and the student can draw useful conclusions even from a remote or peripheral topic.

For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile--and without a blush--in steadfast virile seriousness.

Os homens nunca praticam o mal tão completa e entusiasticamente como quando o fazem por convicção religiosa.