Quotes from Umberto Eco

Adiós muñeca, ha sido muy hermoso, pero eras un autómata sin alma.

Heden ten dage verstaat men onder vrijheid echter de mogelijkheid om de geloofsovertuiging en de mening te kiezen die je het meest aanstaat en die allemaal inwisselbaar zijn - en het maakt de staat niet uit of je vrijmetselaar, christen, Jood of een volgeling van de Grote Turk bent. Zo wordt men onverschillig jegens de Waarheid.

I didn't like being his dear friend, but I went on listening to him. Giulio/Giulia

World visions can conceive of everything, except alternative world visions...

there are two forms of magic. There is a magic that is the work of the Devil and which aims at man's downfall through artifices of which it is not licit to speak. But there is a magic that is divine, where God's knowledge is made manifest through the knowledge of man, and it serves to transform nature, and one of its ends is to prolong man's very life.

The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the less I value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to do; and as the only element of salvation I recognize faith, which can wait patiently, without asking too many questions.

Accordingly, the choice between a literature review and a research thesis is linked to the student's ability and maturity. And regrettably, it is often linked to financial factors, because a working student certainly has less time and energy to dedicate to long hours of research and trips to foreign research institutes or libraries, and often lacks money for the purchase of rare and expensive books and other resources.

metaphor is not only a means of delight but also, and above all, a tool of cognition...

Does it make sense to choose the wrong Opportunity just to convince yourself that you would have chosen the right one—had you had the Opportunity? I

Nu înÈ›elegeam niciodat? când glumea. Pe la noi, când se glumeÅŸte, se spune ceva, apoi se râde zgomotos, încât toÈ›i s? poat? lua parte la glum?. Guglielmo râdea, în schimb, numai când spunea lucruri serioase ÅŸi r?mânea foarte serios când de fapt glumea.

The taxi driver is someone who spends all day driving in city traffic (an activity that provokes either heart attack or delirium), in constant conflict with other human drivers. Consequently, he is nervous and hates every anthropomorphic creature.

Bauman notes that a typical feature of the interregnum, once the faith in salvation from above, from the state, or from revolution is gone, is indignation. Such indignation knows what it doesn't want, but not what it does.

Only by having a sense of history's trajectory (even if one does not believe in Parousia) can one love earthly reality and believe—with charity—that there is still room for Hope.

I followed the curve that rose from the capitals of the semicircle of columns and ran along the ribs of the vault toward the key, mirroring the mystery of the ogive, that supreme static hypocrisy which rests on an absence, making the columns believe that they are thrusting the great ribs upward and the ribs believe that they are holding the columns down, the vault being both all and noting, at once cause and effect.

Pero los periódicos ¿siguen las tendencias de la gente o las crean? —Ambas cosas, señorita Fresia. La gente al principio no sabe qué tendencia tiene, luego nosotros se lo decimos y entonces la gente se da cuenta de que la tiene.

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry.

There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

A scoundrel is an evil heliotrope turning always in the direction of the most powerful.

Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.

Io non vi dico di prepararvi all'altra vita, ma di usare bene quest'unica vita che vi è data, per affrontare quando verrà, l'unica morte di cui avrete mai esperienza. E' necessario meditare prima, e molte volte, sull'arte del morire, per riuscire a farlo bene una sola volta

Il n'existe pas de technique de l'oubli, nous en sommes encore aux processus naturels de hasard – lésions cérébrales, amnésie ou l'improvisation manuelle, que sais-je, un voyage, l'alcool, la cure de sommeil, le suicide.

We like lists because we don't want to die.

I know nothing. There is nothing that I know. But the heart senses certain things. Let your heart speak, question faces, do not listen to tongues.