Quote

The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.

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
Must
Meaningless
Even
Useful
Mind
Throw
Something
Discover
Imagines
Like
Built
Afterward
Imagine
Ladder
Away
Ladders
Order
Attain

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The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens?
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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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What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.
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You tell me these two were my parents, so now I know but it's a memory that you've given me. I'll remember the photo from now on, but not them.
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I started to write [The Name of the Rose] in March of 1978, moved by a seminal idea. I wanted to poison a monk.
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Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.
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In the construction of Immortal Fame you need first of all a cosmic shamelessness.
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The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
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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.
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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.
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We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
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I write stories about conspiracies and paranoid characters while I am, in fact, a very skeptical person.
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Books always speak of other books.
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A human best, which is very little. Its hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride.
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All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful.
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How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.
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Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.
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There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.
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When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.
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There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past.
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