Quotes from Umberto Eco

Often books speak of books.

El espacio de la conjetura es un espacio rizomático. El

But Saint Bernard was right: little by little the man who depicts monsters and portents of nature to reveal the things of God per speculum et in aenigmate, comes to enjoy the very nature of the monstrosities he creates and to delight in them, and as a result he no longer sees except through them.

It's true," Benno said, smiling for the first time, his face growing almost radiant. "We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.

epitaphiorum, &, cum itinere germanico, adaptationibus & aliquot disquisitionibus R.P.D. Joannis Mabillon, Presbiteri ac Monachi Ord. Sancti Benedicti e Congregatione

hell is heaven seen from the other side.

You have only to look, you who still have your sight, at the capitals of your cloister." And he motioned with his hand beyond the window, toward the church. "Before the eyes of monks intent on meditation, what is the meaning of those ridiculous grotesques, those monstrous shapes and shapely monsters?

When one has a text to question, it is irrelevant to ask the author.

Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know.

Ya no logro distinguir cuáles son las diferencias accidentales de los valdenses, los cátaros, los pobres de Lyon, los humillados, los begardos, los terciarios, los lombardos, los joaquinistas, los patarinos, los apostólicos, los pobres de Lombardía, los arnaldistas, los guillermitas, los seguidores del espíritu libre y los luciferinos.

Monkeys do not laugh. Laughter is particular to men.

Zawsze tak jest - je?li ci sie nie powiedzie, szukasz kogo?, aby oskar?aj?c go, usprawiedliwi? w?asne niedo??stwo.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God

by now it is more pleasurable for a monk to read marble than manuscript, and to admire the works of man than to meditate on the law of God. Shame! For the desire of your eyes and for your smiles!" The old man stopped, out of breath.

L'Ur-fascisme croît et cherche le consensus en exploitant et exacerbant la naturelle peur de la différence. Le premier appel d'un mouvement fasciste ou prématurément fasciste est lancé contre les intrus. L'Ur-fascite est donc raciste par définition.

The list could surely go on, and there is nothing more wonderful than the catalogue, an instrument of wondrous hypotyposis.

Vive Dios. ¿Si no por qué tomarse tanto trabajo para ser animales racionales? —Todos los grandes monos antropomorfos descienden de formas de vida inferiores, los hombres descienden de formas de vida inferiores, por tanto todos los hombres son grandes monos antropomorfos.

I social media danno diritto di parola a legioni di imbecilli che prima parlavano solo al bar dopo un bicchiere di vino, senza danneggiare la collettività. Venivano subito messi a tacere, mentre ora hanno lo stesso diritto di parola di un Premio Nobel. È l'invasione degli imbecilli

And Adelmo that day quoted another lofty authority, the doctor of Aquino, when he said that divine things should be expounded more properly in figures of vile bodies than of noble bodies.

Los simples, Adso, no pueden escoger libremente su herejía: se aferran al que predica en su tierra, al que pasa por la aldea o por la plaza.

I believe also that often the Evil One works through second causes. And I know that he can impel his victims to do evil in such a way that the blame falls on a righteous man, and the Evil One rejoices then as the righteous man is burned in the place of his succubus.

wo Es war, soll Ich werden.

It has been said that narrative worlds are always little worlds, because they do not constitute a maximal and complete state of things. In this sense narrative worlds are parasitical, because, if the alternative properties are not specified, we take for granted the properties that hold good in the real world.

Nothing pretextual is holy.