Quotes from Umberto Eco

No one believes their misfortunes are attributable to any shortcomings of their own; that is why they must find a culprit.

The next round's on me. Two more, Pilade. All right, then. There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics." "And that covers everybody?" "Oh, yes, including us. Or at least me. If you take a good look, everybody fits into one of these categories. Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.

me había topado con la afirmación de Carpócrates según la cual, para liberarnos de la tiranía de los ángeles, señores del cosmos, es necesario perpetrar toda clase de ignominias, saldando todas las deudas que hemos contraído con el universo y con nuestro cuerpo, porque sólo cometiendo todos los actos el alma puede liberarse de sus pasiones y reencontrar la pureza originaria.

When you go from the fake New Orleans of Disneyland to the real one, where the captain of the paddle-wheel steamer says it is possible to see alligators on the banks of the river, and then you don't see any, you risk feeling homesick for Disneyland. -'City of Robots',1986

çünkü gündüz uykusu bedenin günah? gibidir. Ne denli çok iÅŸlenirse, o denli çok istenir.

The polemical title is "The Force of Falsity," and in the lecture I wanted to show how a number of ideas that today we consider false actually changed the world (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse) and how, in the best instances, false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or at least something we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity.

tatterdemalions

It was typical of Belbo to seek revenges of which he would be the only witness. Not out of modesty, but because he distrusted the ability of others to appreciate them.

para no acabar haciendo el necio, prefiero no empezar haciendo el listo.

often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where they do not exist, but also that inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred of the judges. Truly, a circle conceived by the devil.

La cultura è un'alternanza continua tra la libera presa di parola e la critica di questa presa di parola.

I see your point," William said. I had already had occasion to observe that when he expressed himself so promptly and politely he was usually concealing, in an honest way, his dissent or puzzlement.

Si se difundiera la idea de que, al contaminar el mundo, no solo se perjudica a las ballenas sino también (perdonen el tecnicismo) a la polla, creo que asistiríamos a repentinas conversiones al ecologismo.

Such is the power of the truth that, like good, it is its own propagator

B]ut newspapers nowadays had too many pages, no one could proof everything before it went to press, and even the major newspapers were now writing "Simone de Beauvoire," or "Beaudelaire," or "Roosvelt," and the proofreader was becoming as outmoded as the Gutenberg press.

He was still there when, having seen history now as a place rich in whims and incomprehensible plots for Reasons of State, he learned from Saint-Savin how treacherous was the great machine of the world, plagued by the iniquities of Chance.

Do not expect too much of the end of the world. —StanisÅ'aw J. Lec, Aforyzmy. Fraszki, Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977, "MyÅ›li nieuczesane

formal semantics has sought to expand a logic of truth conditions so as to recognize the legitimacy of metaphorical expressions - expressions that speak about the world by lying.

In order for there to be a mirror of the world, it is necessary that the world have a form.

It is necessary to create constraints, in order to invent freely.

Así es como conoce Dios el mundo, porque lo ha concebido en su mente, o sea, en cierto sentido, desde fuera, antes de crearlo, mientras que nosotros no logramos conocer su regla, porque vivimos dentro de él y lo hemos encontrado ya hecho.

kendimden geçip uykuya dald?m ve uzun uzun uyudum, çünkü gençlerin uykuya yaÅŸl?lardan daha çok gereksinimi vard?r; onlar bol bol uyudular; sonsuz uykular?na haz?rlan?yorlar ÅŸimdi.

This was my master's way. He not only knew how to read the great book of nature, but also knew the way monks read the books of Scripture, and how they thought through them. A gift that, as we shall see, was to prove useful to him in the days to follow.

Do not laugh too much at your fellows. Those whom you cannot love you should, rather, fear.