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A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny.

Umberto Eco

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Umberto Eco
Age: 84 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 5
Died: 2016
Died: February 19
Essayist
Historian
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Medievalist
Novelist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Semiotician
Translator
Lissändria
Umberto Ecco
Umberto Eccounstino
Humberto Eco
Dedalus
Umberto Eko
Oumperto Eko
Eco Umberto
U. Eco
Words
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Equally
Untroubled
True
Witty
Malaise
Long
Opposite
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Urges

More quotes by Umberto Eco

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They [the Templars] had read Avicenna, and they were not ignorant, like the Europeans. How could you live alongside a tolerant, mystical, libertine culture for two centuries without succumbing to its allure, particularly when you compared it to Western culture, which was crude, vulgar, barbaric, and Germanic?
Umberto Eco
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Books are menaced by books. Any excess of information produces silence.
Umberto Eco
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My collection of rare books concerns only books that don't tell the truth.
Umberto Eco
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You cannot believe what you are saying. Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal nymph, only to plumb with his words the depths of passion. The philosopher tests the coldness of his gaze, to see how far he can undermine the fortress of bigotry.
Umberto Eco
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On sober reflection, I find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of an obscure, neo-Gothic French version of a seventeenth century Latin edition of a work written in Latin by a German Monk toward the end of the fourteenth century...First of all, what style should I employ?
Umberto Eco
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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.
Umberto Eco
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Yes, I know, it's not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.
Umberto Eco
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The Devil is not the Prince of Matter the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.
Umberto Eco
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I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs.
Umberto Eco
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A secret is powerful when it is empty.
Umberto Eco
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If photography is to be likened to perception, this is not because the former is a natural process but because the latter is also coded.
Umberto Eco
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The Art of the Romance, though warning us that it is providing fictions, opens a door into the Palace of Absurdity, and when we have lightly stepped inside, slams it shut behind us.
Umberto Eco
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How clear everything becomes when you look from the darkness of a dungeon.
Umberto Eco
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The Internet gives us everything and forces us to filter it not by the workings of culture, but with our own brains. This risks creating six billion separate encyclopedias, which would prevent any common understanding whatsoever.
Umberto Eco
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But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed? I asked, for no good reason. Is Jorge right? Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn't interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave. . . .
Umberto Eco
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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
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Our most noted satirists are true columnists and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented exposé.
Umberto Eco
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What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?
Umberto Eco
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A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.
Umberto Eco
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An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original.
Umberto Eco