Umberto Eco Quotes

But Paris, all in all, isn't what it used o be, ever since that pencil sharpener, the Eiffel Tower, has been sticking up in the distance, visible from every angle.

But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. Hatred has to be cultivated as a civic passion. The enemy is the friend of the people. You always want som...

But you see how man is also machine, and it suffices to turn one wheel on the surface and other wheels then turn inside: the brother and the enmity are merely the reflection of the fear that each man...

Chatter then will be phatic discourse that has become an end in itself, but sports chatter is something more, a continuous phatic discourse that deceitfully passes itself off as talk of the City and i...

Como embriagado, gozaba de la presencia de la muchacha en las cosas que veía, y, al desearla en ellas, viéndolas, mi deseo se colmaba. Y, sin embargo, en medio de tanta dicha, sentía una especie de do...

Diotallevi and Belbo, both from Piedmont, often claimed that any good Piedmontese had the ability to listen politely, look you in the eye, and say You think so? in a tone of such apparent sincerity th...

For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile--and without a blush--in steadfast virile...

Hastalandığımda kendimi senin ellerine teslim edeyim; sana bilmediklerim dahil hakkımda her şeyi anlatayım ve sen benim ruhumun efendisi ol, ister miydin?

He had prepared his death much earlier, in his imagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he, was planning the reality of that death.

He looked around circumspectly, then introduced himself: Professor Camestres. At the question Professor of what? he made a vague gesture, as if urging us to exercise greater discretion.

I didn’t like being his dear friend, but I went on listening to him. Giulio/Giulia,

I dreamed what all losers dream, about one day writing a book that would bring me fame and fortune.

I felt dull and somnolent, for daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh: the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time. William

I know nothing. There is nothing that I know. But the heart senses certain things. Let your heart speak, question faces, do not listen to tongues.

I moved along ancient streets, enchanted by names that sounded like songs: Rua da Agonia, Avenida dos Amores, Travessa de Chico Diabo. Our visit to Salvador took place during a period when the local g...

I perdenti, come gli autodidatti, hanno sempre conoscenze più vaste dei vincenti, se vuoi vincere devi sapere una cosa sola e non perdere tempo a saperle tutte, il piacere dell’erudizione è riservato...

I'd never understood whether the vogue for apologising is a sign of humility of impudence: you do something you shouldn't have done, then you apologise and wash your hands of it.

If a student works rigorously, no topic is truly foolish, and the student can draw useful conclusions even from a remote or peripheral topic.

In the past men were handsome and great (now they are children and dwarfs), but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world. The young no longer want to study...

It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.