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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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Famous Umberto Eco Quotes

“I was in a maze. No matter which way I turned, it was the wrong way.”

Way Matter Wrong Way Mazes

Author:Umberto Eco

“Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages... a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn't be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.”

“Every thing thinks, but according to its complexity. If this is so, then stones also think...and this stone thinks only I stone, I stone, I stone. But perhaps it cannot even say I. It thinks: Stone, stone, stone... God enjoys being All, as this stone enjoys being almost nothing, but since it knows no other way of being, it is pleased with its own way, eternally satisfied with itself.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Way Enjoy Stones Satisfied Complexity

Author:Umberto Eco

“A newspaper can follow the compulsions, the desires of the readers. Take the English evening newspapers - they are following the readers' desires when they are interested only in the royal family gossip. But even the most objective, serious newspaper in the world designs the way in which the reader could or should think. That's unavoidable.”

Thinking World Way Should Desire Design Serious Reader Following Newspapers Objectives Evening Gossip Royal Compulsion Royal Family

Author:Umberto Eco

“I have always been fascinated by paranoid people imagining conspiracies. I am fascinated by this in a critical way.”

People Way Critical Fascinated Conspiracy Paranoid

Author:Umberto Eco

“All the theories of conspiracy were always a way to escape our responsibilities. It is a very important kind of social sickness by which we avoid recognizing reality such as it is and avoid our responsibilities.”

Way Kind Important Reality Social Responsibility Theory Sickness Conspiracy Recognizing

Author:Umberto Eco

“To imagine secret societies and conspiracy is a way not to react to the social and political life. Because you say, "We don't know who they are. We cannot react without reasoning." So it is a way to keep people far from the political environment.”

People Knows Way Political Social Secret Environment Imagine Reasoning Conspiracy Political Life Secret Society Political Environment

Author:Umberto Eco

“I'm always fascinated by losers. Also, in my "Foucault's Pendulum," the main characters, who are in a way losers, they are more interesting than the winners.”

Way Character Interesting Winner Loser Fascinated Main Characters Pendulums

Author:Umberto Eco

“We know that sensory phenomena are transcribed in the photographic emulsion in such a way that even if there is a causal link with the real phenomena, the graphic images can be considered as wholly arbitrary with respect to these phenomena.”

Ifs Knows Way Real Links Arbitrary Graphic Sensory

Author:Umberto Eco

“I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.”

Knows Way Feels Stories Seems Together Terrible Brands Cliche Brand New Believable Grandiose

Author:Umberto Eco

“Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.”

Way Want Mystical Subtraction

Author:Umberto Eco

“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.”

Way Want Ends Dies Limits Assuming Lists Discouraging Escaping Wanting To Die Humiliating

Author:Umberto Eco

“The art of splitting hairs four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless.”

Ifs Way Art Seems Four Example Hair Machines Technique Saved Useless Not Sure Department Uncles Greetings Splitting

Author:Umberto Eco

“Libraries have always been humanities' way of preserving its collective wisdom”

Way Humanity Wise Library Collectives Collective Wisdom

Author:Umberto Eco

“I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.”

Thinking Way Giving Writing Book Attention Situation Audience Lessons Activity Normal Capture Professors Writing A Book Theatrical Complicity Exhibitionist

Author:Umberto Eco

“Religion has nothing to do with God. It's a fundamental attitude of human beings, who ask about the origins of life and what happens after death. For many, the answer is a personal god. In my opinion, it's religion that produces God, not the other way round.”

Way Humans Happens Asks Human Beings Answers Attitude Opinion Produce Fundamentals Rounds After Death Origin Of Life

Author:Umberto Eco

“The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar "queen", alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades.”

Way Real Song Kings Calling Court Queens Homosexual Transparent Outrageous Julius Carnivals Jester Court Jester Escapade

Author:Umberto Eco

“I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts.”

People Way Age Passion Middle Middle Ages Coconuts

Author:Umberto Eco

About the Author

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

Related Topics

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

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

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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