Umberto Eco Quotes

Quotes about:

• Every great thinker is someone else's moron.

  Umberto Eco

  Insult, Moron, Thinker

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.76, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  40 Copy quote

• The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come.

  Umberto Eco

  Wise, Freedom, Men

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.184, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

  Umberto Eco

  Things Change, Idiot, Ifs

  99 Copy quote

• Given that there are seven billion people living on this earth, there is a consistent quantity of imbecile or idiot, okay. Previously, these people could express themselves only with their friends or at the bar after two or three glasses of something, and they said every silliness, and people laughed. Now they have the possibility to show up on the internet. And so, on the internet, along with the messages of a lot of interesting and important people - even the Pope is writing on Twitter - we have a great quantity of idiots.

  Umberto Eco

  Writing, Two, Glasses

  Interview with Chris Wallace, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 2, 2015.

  63 Copy quote

• There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

  Umberto Eco

  Stupid, Mad, Four

  82 Copy quote

• Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

  Umberto Eco

  Love, Inspirational, Relationship

  Umberto Eco (2006). “The Island of the Day Before”, p.380, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  90 Copy quote

• Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes.... Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.

  Umberto Eco

  Country, Communication, Army

  "Il costume di casa" (1973); as translated in "Travels in Hyperreality" (1986),

  46 Copy quote

• Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means.

  Umberto Eco

  Trust, Book, Mean

  Umberto Eco (1995). “Name of the Rose”, p.328, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  39 Copy quote

• When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

  Umberto Eco

  Atheist, Believe, Men

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.615, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  112 Copy quote

• To survive, you must tell stories.

  Umberto Eco

  Story Writers, Stories

  Umberto Eco (2006). “The Island of the Day Before”, p.221, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  62 Copy quote

• A secret is powerful when it is empty.

  Umberto Eco

  Powerful, Secret, Empty

  "Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction No. 197". Interviewed with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.theparisreview.org. February 20, 2016.

  8 Copy quote

• Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.

  Umberto Eco

  Fear, Humility, Religion

  Umberto Eco (1995). “Name of the Rose”, p.503, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• All the blogs, Facebook, Twitter are made by people who want to show their own private affairs at the price of making fakes, to try to appear such as they are not, to construct another personality, which is a veritable loss of identity.

  Umberto Eco

  Loss, People, Fake

  Interview with Chris Wallace, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 2, 2015.

  84 Copy quote

• I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

  Umberto Eco

  Fathers Day, Dad, Believe

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.60, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  93 Copy quote

• Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.

  Umberto Eco

  Race, Coward, Principles

  10 Copy quote

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

  Umberto Eco

  Thinking, Race, Religion

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.113, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

  Umberto Eco

  Life, Witty, Powerful

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.104, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  39 Copy quote

• Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

  Umberto Eco

  Feelings, Matter, Language

  56 Copy quote

• The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.

  Umberto Eco

  Memories, Sick, Would Be

  7 Copy quote

• Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart.

  Umberto Eco

  Heart, Tests, Spirit

  Umberto Eco (2006). “The Island of the Day Before”, p.209, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  26 Copy quote

• Love is wiser than wisdom.

  Umberto Eco

  Love Is, Wiser

  31 Copy quote

• What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?

  Umberto Eco

  Dream, Shadow, Fleeting

  Umberto Eco (2003). “Baudolino”, p.353, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  23 Copy quote

• Originality and creativity are nothing but the result of the wise management of combinations. The creative genius combines more rapidly, and with a greater critical sense of what gets tossed out and what gets saved, the same material that the failed genius has to work with.

  Umberto Eco

  Wise, Creativity, Creative

  31 Copy quote

• The real hero is always a hero by mistake.

  Umberto Eco

  Real, Mistake, Hero

  Umberto Eco (2014). “Travels in Hyperreality”, p.133, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That's why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It's a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die.

  Umberto Eco

  Escaping, Want, Way

  "'We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die'". Interview with Susanne Beyer and Lothar Gorris, www.spiegel.de. November 11, 2009.

  78 Copy quote

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