Quotes from Umberto Eco

The simple cannot choose their personal heresy, Adso; they cling to the man preaching in their land, who passes through their village or stops in their square. This is what their enemies exploit.

Si los chicos no aprenden esto, que la cultura no es acumulación de saber sino discriminación, no hay educación sino desorden mental.

La política, amenazada por el terrorismo, ha dado vida a los miembros de una casta condenada a no saber nada del país que debe gobernar. Casta sí, pero en el sentido de los parias indios, despojados del contacto con los demás seres humanos.

not everything can be a symbol. A symbol has to be textually produced; it requires a specific semiotic strategy. [...] . A symbolic strategy can produce aesthetic enjoyment, but it is first of all semiotic machinery.

Joinville's perspective shifts vertically, depending on whether he has fallen from his horse or just remounted.

ya se sabe que la historia se repite dos veces, la primera en forma de tragedia y la segunda en forma de farsa.

Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another. The connection changes the perspective; it leads you to think that every detail of the world, every voice, every word written or spoken has more than its literal meaning, that it tells us a Secret.

Maar het is me vaak gebeurd dat ik de verleidelijkste voorstellingen van de zonde juist aantrof in de geschriften van die mannen van onkreukbare deugdzaamheid, die de bekoring en de invloeden ervan veroordeelden. Teken dat zij worden gedreven door een zodanige ijver om van de waarheid te getuigen dat zij, uit liefde voor God, niet aarzelen aan het kwaad alle verlokkingen toe te schrijven waarin het zich hult, om de mensen beter in kennis te stellen van de manieren waarop de Boze hen bekoort.

If the pope, the bishops, and the priests were not subject to the worldly and coercive power of the prince, the authority of the prince would be challenged, and thus, with it, an order would be challenged that, as had been demonstrated previously, had been decreed by God.

Symbol sometimes of the Devil, sometimes of the Risen Christ, no animal is more untrustworthy than the cock.

Cartea este o asigurare de viata, un mic avans de nemurire.

Here, in the realm of three-dimensional wax, the mirror is painted. The only credible reasons are symbolic. Confronting an instance where Art played consciously with Illusion and admitted the vanity of images through the image of an image, the industry of the Absolute Fake didn't dare venture to copy, because it would have come too close to the revelation of its own falsehood.

Tener un enemigo es importante no solo para definir nuestra identidad, sino también para procurarnos un obstáculo con respecto al cual medir nuestro sistema de valores y mostrar, al encararlo, nuestro valor. Por lo tanto, cuando el enemigo no existe, es preciso construirlo.

Soy culpable de su condenación, soy culpable de la condenación de todos los que se condenan, es justo que las tres mujeres no hayan sido mías: es el castigo por haberlas deseado. Pierdo la primera porque está en el paraíso, la segunda porque envidia en el purgatorio el pene que jamás tendrá, y la tercera porque está en el infierno. Teológicamente perfecto. Ya escrito.

And in that city Ferrante's rise began, at the outer edge of the Spanish court, where he learned that the virtue of sovereigns is their caprice, and Power is an insatiable monster, to be served with slavish devotion in order to snatch every crumb falling from that table.

You cannot change the world through ideas. People with few ideas are less likely to make mistakes; they follow what everyone else does and are no trouble to anyone; they're successful, make money, find good jobs, enter politics, receive honours; they become famous writers, academics, journalists. Can anyone who is so good at looking after their own interests really be stupid? I'm the stupid one, the one who wanted to go tilting at windmills.

The pleasures of love are pains that become desirable, where sweetness and torment blend, and so love is voluntary insanity, infernal paradise, and celestial hell - in short, harmony of opposite yearnings, sorrowful laughter, soft diamond.

Tyranny, you understand, has been achieved thanks to universal suffrage! The scoundrel has carried out an authoritarian coup d'état by appealing to the ignorant mob! This is a warning to us about the democracy of tomorrow." "Quite right," thought Simonini. "This Napoleon is a man for our times. He understands how to keep a grip on people who only seventy years ago were getting excited about the idea of cutting off a king's head.

perché aveva scritto che alla stazione di Torino due treni diretti s'incrociavano: l'uno in partenza, e l'altro in arrivo. La sua descrizione pareva stolidamente ridondante. Ma, a ripensarci bene, l'annotazione non è così ridondante come appare a prima vista. Dov'è che due treni che s'incrociano non ripartono entrambi dopo essere arrivati?

P?i, unde s? m? g?siÈ›i? Fac parte dintr-o generaÈ›ie pierdut? È™i m? reg?sesc numai când asist, în tov?r??ia altora, la singur?tatea semenilor mei.

Svestan da ne verujem, ose?ao sam krivicu što svi oko mene veruju. Pošto sam ose?ao da su u pravu, odlu?io sam da i sam po?nem da verujem, i to onako kako se pije aspirin. Ne škodi, a bude nam bolje.

Good libraries hold several millions of books: even if we read a book a day, we would read only 365 a year, around 3,600 in ten years, and between the ages of ten and eighty we'll have read only 25,200. A trifle.

Graecum est, non legitur," I finished his sentence, humiliated. "It is Greek to me." "Exactly;

es verdad, la cultura medieval tiene el sentido de la innovación, pero se las ingenia para esconderlo bajo el disfraz de la repetición (al contrario de la cultura moderna, que finge innovar incluso cuando repite).