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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.

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
Case
Follow
Subjects
Poetry
Cases
Grasp
Words
Opposite
Happens
Opposites
Believe
Subject

More quotes by Umberto Eco

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Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry.
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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.
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[I am fascinated by stupidity] because normal intelligence is boring. Two plus two makes four - finished. You have no possibilities! Stupidity is infinite. Two plus two can make billions of different numbers.
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Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.
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The real hero is always a hero by mistake he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
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Love flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity.
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Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.
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
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A library's ideal function is to be a little bit like a bouquiniste's stall, a place for trouvailles.
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Musical compositions can be very sad - Chopin - but you have the pleasure of this sadness. The cheap consolation is: you will be happy. The higher consolation is the pleasure and recognition of your unhappiness, the pleasure of having recognised that fate, destiny and life are such as they are and so you reach a higher form of consciousness.
Umberto Eco
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I felt like poisoning a monk.
Umberto Eco
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I seal that which was not to be said in the tomb that I become.
Umberto Eco
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Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.
Umberto Eco
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One of the problems I have always discussed is the refusal to distinguish between comment and fact. The newspaper wraps every fact into a comment. It is impossible to give mere fact without establishing point of view.
Umberto Eco
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The more elusive and ambiguous a symbol is, the more it gains significance and power.
Umberto Eco
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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?
Umberto Eco
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I don't miss my youth. I'm glad I had one, but I wouldn't like to start over.
Umberto Eco
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For, I must tell you, in this world where today all lose their minds over many & wondrous Machines - some of which, alas, you can see also in this Siege - I construct Aristotelian Machines, that allow anyone to see with Words.
Umberto Eco
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The Fundamental Principle that governs - or ought to govern -human affairs if we wish to avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, or pointless utopias, is negotiation.
Umberto Eco
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There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.
Umberto Eco