Umberto Eco quotes - page 8

We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we, too, would become Taliban. (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. View quote
Umberto Eco
The problem with the Internet is that it gives you everything - reliable material and crazy material. So the problem becomes, how do you discriminate? View quote
Umberto Eco
A secret is powerful when it is empty. View quote
Umberto Eco
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. View quote
Umberto Eco
The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other. View quote
Umberto Eco
People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged. View quote
Umberto Eco
The mobile phone... is a tool for those whose professions require a fast response, such as doctors or plumbers. View quote
Umberto Eco
The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick. View quote
Umberto Eco
Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian. View quote
Umberto Eco
Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility. (Umberto Eco)
We invented the car, and it made it easier for us to crash and die. If I gave a car to my grandfather, he would die in five minutes, while I have grown up slowly to accept speed. View quote
Umberto Eco
Media populism means appealing to people directly through media. A politician who can master the media can shape political affairs outside of parliament and even eliminate the mediation of parliament. View quote
Umberto Eco
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. View quote
Umberto Eco
I write what I write. View quote
Umberto Eco
To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout. View quote
Umberto Eco
When I went from being an academic to being a member of the community of writers some of my former colleagues did look on me with a certain resentment. View quote
Umberto Eco
Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale. View quote
Umberto Eco
Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned. View quote
Umberto Eco
Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings. View quote
Umberto Eco
Conspiracies do exist. Probably in this moment in New York there is an economic group making a conspiracy in order to buy three banks. But if they succeed, they are immediately discovered. (Umberto Eco)
As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying. View quote
Umberto Eco
Narrativity presumes a special taste for plot. And this taste for plot was always very present in the Anglo-Saxon countries and that explains their high quality of detective novels. View quote
Umberto Eco
It is clear that when you write a story that takes place in the past, you try to show what really happened in those times. But you are always moved by the suspicion that you are also showing something about our contemporary world. View quote
Umberto Eco
When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer. View quote
Umberto Eco