Quotes from Umberto Eco

Mutlu insan?n hikayesi olmaz

a cor não é mais do que a luz do sol aprisionada ...

master did not share the austere habits of the Benedictines and did not like to eat in silence. For that matter, he spoke always of things so good and wise that it was as if a monk were reading to us the lives of the saints.

Porque la ciencia no consiste sólo en saber lo que debe o puede hacerse, sino también en saber lo que podría hacerse aunque quizá no debiera hacerse.

He offers what is no longer a map, but a strange projection of the entire globe from the point of view of the Pole, the mystic Pole, naturally, and therefore from the point of view of an ideal Pendulum suspended from an ideal keystone. This is a map specially conceived to be placed beneath a Pendulum! It's obvious, undeniable; I can't imagine why somebody hasn't already seen—

no theory of hermeneutic legitimation can be indeed legitimate if not by the process of hermeneutic reading… At the origin of the hermeneutic practice, there is a circle; it does not matter how holy or how vicious.

But let us be frank: Rebaudengo was a rogue, and when I think of all I have done since then, I seem to have practiced my roguery only on rogues. As for those boys, they were fanatics, and fanatics are the scum of the earth, because it's through them, and the vague principles they espouse, that wars and revolutions happen. And since I had come to realize that the number of fanatics in this world will never diminish, I decided that I might as well profit from their fanaticism.

Which?" I asked. "Aha, our novice wants to know too much. These are things that only the herbalist must know; otherwise any thoughtless person could go about distributing visions: in other words, lying with herbs.

Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message.

Astfel este magia vorbirilor omeneÅŸti, care prin înÅ£elegere omeneasc? însemneaz? adesea, cu sunete egale, lucruri deosebite.

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

Estoy persuadido de que el mundo es un enigma benigno, que nuestra locura vuelve terrible porque pretende interpretarlo con arreglo a su propia verdad.

So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth.

Badate bene che oggi per controbattere un'accusa non è necessario provare il contrario, basta delegittimare l'accusatore.

calcination

How beautiful the world is, and how ugly labyrinths are, I said, relieved. How beautiful the world would be if there were a procedure for moving through labyrinths, my master replied.

There comes a time when one has to make up one's mind and choose which side one is on. The catoptric universe is a reality which can give the impression of virtuality, whereas the semiotic universe is a virtuality which can give the impression of reality.

Have you ever wondered why in the last century all the great metropolises hastened to build subways?" "To solve traffic problems?" "Before there were automobiles, when there were only horse-drawn carriages? From

Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can.

We make lists because we don't want to die

The life of the simple, Abo, is not illuminated by learning and by the lively sense of distinctions that makes us wise. And it is haunted by illness and poverty, tongue-tied by ignorance.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of their history, like an ancestral portrait.

Tudo, até o irrelevante, pode ser útil um dia.

Palladism. Then I came to Paris. Maybe they wanted to