Umberto Eco Quotes

40 quotes

Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist (1932–2016)

“Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.”

"How clear everything becomes when you look from the darkness of a dungeon!"

on Philosophy

"The author should die once he has finished writing. So as not to trouble the path of the text."

on Writing

"El diablo no es el príncipe de la materia, el diablo es la arrogancia del espíritu, la fe sin sonrisa, la verdad jamás tocada por la duda."

on Faith

"You are always born under the wrong sign, and to live in this world properly you have to rewrite your own horoscope day by day."

on Life

"Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh; the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time."

on Life

"Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy wants only this: to keep the leper as he is."

on Philosophy

"And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?"

on Fear

"I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly."

on Courage

"Yes, I know, it's not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges."

on Truth

"The beauty of the universe consists not only of unity in variety, but also of variety in unity."

on Philosophy

"Beauty is boring because it is predictable."

on Art

"It’s quite possible that mortality is simply the result of poor education."

on Education

"If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teachthem how to use television."

on Wisdom

"The real hero is always a hero by mistake he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."

on Philosophy

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

on Philosophy

"Atât de mare e puterea adevărului care, precum binele, se răspândește de la sine."

on Truth

"People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction."

on Religion

"Translation is the art of failure."

on Art

"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."

on Writing

"He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal."

on Character