Quote

I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.

Umberto Eco

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Point
Believing
Believe
Developing
Thinking
Reach
Habit
Difference
Longer
Differences
Belief
Pretending

More quotes by Umberto Eco

Image
Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.
Umberto Eco
Image
Whoever reflects on four things I would be better if he were never born: that which is above, that which is below, that which is before, that which is after.
Umberto Eco
Image
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.
Umberto Eco
Image
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
Image
History is a blood-drenched enigma and the world an error.
Umberto Eco
Image
At most, recognizing that our history was inspired by many tales we now recognize as false should make us alert, ready to call to constantly into question the very tale we believe true, because the criterion of the wisdom of the community is based on constant awareness of the fallibility of our learning.
Umberto Eco
Image
The United States needed a civil war to unite properly.
Umberto Eco
Image
I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.
Umberto Eco
Image
Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis. The most exciting letters I received were from people in places like that.
Umberto Eco
Image
A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.
Umberto Eco
Image
The truth is a young maiden as modest as she is beautiful, and therefore she is always seen cloaked.
Umberto Eco
Image
[In my writing] I know that I have made a caricature out of [others' academic] theories [but] I think that caricatures are frequently good portraits.
Umberto Eco
Image
New Orleans is not in the grip of a neurosis of a denied past it passes out memories generously like a great lord it doesn't have to pursue the real thing.
Umberto Eco
Image
There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.
Umberto Eco
Image
I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.
Umberto Eco
Image
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
Image
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
Image
My father was an accountant and his father was a typographer.
Umberto Eco
Image
The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.
Umberto Eco
Image
There are more books in the world than hours in which to read them. We are thus deeply influenced by books we haven't read, that we haven't had the time to read.
Umberto Eco