Home / Quotes / Quote by Umberto Eco

Quote by 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.”

Quote by Umberto Eco

Author

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'. more

You May Also Like

“Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?”

Men Years Believe Two Church Principles Thousand Universal Traits Thousand Years Survived Readiness Gullibility

Author:Umberto Eco

“There must be a connection between the lust for power and impotentia coeundi. I liked Marx, I was sure that he and his Jenny had made love merrily. You can feel it in the easy pace of his prose and in his humor. On the other hand, I remember remarking one day in the corridors of the university that if you screwed Krupskaya all the time, you'd end up writing a lousy book like Materialism and Empiriocriticism.”

Ifs Feels Writing Made Book Ends Hands Remember Easy One Day Connections University Lust Prose Materialism Pace Corridors Jenny Lust For Power

Author:Umberto Eco

“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

“All the privileged can travel, see different worlds, not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.”

People Thinking World Important Different Interesting Privileged Different Worlds

Author:Zaha Hadid

“All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black.”

War Feelings Black Religious White Blood Century Position Passionate Arise Shed Good And Bad Religious Wars

Author:Umberto Eco

“Books always speak of other books.”

Book:The Name of the Rose

Source: The Name of the Rose

“For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.”

Simple Poor Cities Mystery Century Pope Quarrels Fringe Emperor Living On Countryside Illustration Outcast Wondrous Excluded Humiliated Parables Leper Leprosy

Book:Name of the Rose

Source: Name of the Rose

“Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment.”

World Giving Understanding Seeing Awareness Emotional Illusion Relation Photograph Despite Invites Aesthetic Detachment

Book:On photography

Source: On photography

“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past-are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance.”

People Feelings Past Rooms Cities Fire Distance Photograph Woods Absence Landscape Erotic Tokens Unattainable Pseudo Reverie Desirability Incitement

Book:On photography

Source: On photography

“The way in which I create myself is by means of a quest. I go out into the world in order to come back with a self.”

World Way Mean Self Order Quests

Author:Mikhail Bakhtin