Umberto Eco quotes - page 3

Signs are not empirical objects. Empirical objects become signs (or they are looked at as signs) only from the point of view of a philosophical decision. (Umberto Eco)
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. View quote
Umberto Eco
It was awkward, revisiting a world you have never seen before: like coming home, after a long journey, to someone else's house. View quote
Umberto Eco
Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. View quote
Umberto Eco
To survive, you must tell stories. View quote
Umberto Eco
I love the smell of book ink in the morning. View quote
Umberto Eco
Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big. View quote
Umberto Eco
Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told. View quote
Umberto Eco
Love is wiser than wisdom. View quote
Umberto Eco
What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream? View quote
Umberto Eco
We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay. (Umberto Eco)
When you are on the dancefloor, there is nothing to do but dance. View quote
Umberto Eco
It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once. View quote
Umberto Eco
Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names. View quote
Umberto Eco
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. View quote
Umberto Eco
When the writer (or the artist in general) says he has worked without giving any thought to the rules of the process, he simply means he was working without realizing he knew the rules. View quote
Umberto Eco
I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly. View quote
Umberto Eco
Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequenter: grasp the words, and the subject will follow. View quote
Umberto Eco
the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life. View quote
Umberto Eco
But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world. View quote
Umberto Eco
A mystic is a hysteric who has met her confessor before her doctor. (Umberto Eco)
Love flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity. View quote
Umberto Eco
National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. View quote
Umberto Eco
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. View quote
Umberto Eco
Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know. View quote
Umberto Eco