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Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco Quotes

Essayist

Italian essayist, scholar, and critic. Umberto Eco is renowned for his unique literary style and profound academic background. His works integrate history, philosophy, literature, and semiotics, with his most famous novel being 'The Name of the Rose'.

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All Ifs Book Writing Umberto Eco World Believe People Thinking Knows Novel Want Way Two Language Men Facts Religion Semiotics Stories Long

Famous Umberto Eco Quotes

“I write stories about conspiracies and paranoid characters while I am, in fact, a very skeptical person.”

Writing Persons Character Facts Stories Conspiracy Skeptical Paranoid

Author:Umberto Eco

“One of the problems I have always discussed is the refusal to distinguish between comment and fact. The newspaper wraps every fact into a comment. It is impossible to give mere fact without establishing point of view.”

Giving Facts Problem Views Impossible Mere Point Of View Newspapers Comment Wraps Refusal

Author:Umberto Eco

“The Void is not being, but not being cannot be, ergo the Void cannot be. The reasoning was sound, because it denied the Void while granting that it could be conceived. In fact, we can quite easily conceive things that do not exist. Can a chimera, buzzing in the Void, devour second intentions? No, because chimeras do not exist, in the Void no buzzing can be heard, and intentions are mental things - an intended pear does not nourish us. And yet I can think of a chimera even if it is chimerical, namely, if it is not. And the same with the Void.”

Ifs Thinking Doe I Can Facts Sound Heard Intention Reasoning Denied Void Pears Chimera

Author:Umberto Eco

“The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.”

Facts Running Belief Causes Modern Effects Illusion Sequence Linear

Book:Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.”

Facts Inspiration Common Liberty Common Sense Flash Sooner Or Later Lunatic Lunacy Templars

Book:Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“This, in fact, is the power of the imagination, which, combining the memory of gold with that of the mountain, can compose the idea of a golden mountain.”

Ideas Facts Imagination Memories Mountain Gold Golden Combining

Book:Name of the Rose

Source: Name of the Rose

“True learning must not be content with ideas, which are, in fact, signs, but must discover things in their individual truth.”

Ideas Facts Individual

Book:Name of the Rose

Source: Name of the Rose

“Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.”

Important Facts Connected

Book:Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.”

Ifs Facts Used Lying Order Principles Study Discipline Telling The Truth Semiotics

Book:A Theory of Semiotics

Source: A Theory of Semiotics

“You’ll come back To me . . . It’s written in the stars, you see, you’ll come back. You’ll come back, it’s a fact that I am strong because I do believe in you.”

Believe Facts Strong Stars Written Believe In You I Am Strong Come Back To Me Written In The Stars

Author:Umberto Eco

“The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens?”

Stills Facts Body Happens Eye Age Today Faces Pure Female Errors Vices Old Age Demon Vow Choir Maidens Female Body Novices

Book:The Name of the Rose

Source: The Name of the Rose

“The Roseicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn't exist.”

Author:Umberto Eco

“But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.”

Country Facts Intellectual Evaluate Subway Tokyo Raphael

Author:Umberto Eco

“A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny.”

Long Facts Opposites Witty Urges Aphorism Maxims Malaise

Book:On Literature

Source: On Literature

About the Author

Born: January 5, 1932
Died: February 19, 2016
Known for: Essayist
Quotes: 533

Related Topics

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Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

The Name of the RoseRelated source material

Foucault's PendulumRelated source material

Foucault’s PendulumRelated source material

Name of the RoseRelated source material

The Island of the Day BeforeRelated source material

Travels in HyperrealityRelated source material

The Prague CemeteryRelated source material

Semiotics and the Philosophy of LanguageRelated source material

BaudolinoRelated source material

Numero zeroRelated source material

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