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A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

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
Humility
Wishing
Glory
Monk
Books
Yearning
Knowledge
Secular
Laymen
Wish
Riches
Layman
Book
Surely
Monks
Good
Temptation
Seduction
Love
Curiosity
Adultery

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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.
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We are never racist against somebody who is very far away. I don't know any racism against the Eskimos. To have a racist feeling, there must be an other who is slightly different from us - but is living close to us.
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Perhaps I am not as wise as I like to think I am.
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It is a myth of publishers that people want to read easy things.
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... luckily, Eden is soon populated. The ethical dimension begins when the other appears on the scene.
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Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.
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In other words, although I don't like them, we do need noble-spirited souls.
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For Mallarmé naming an object meant suppressing three-quarters of its poetic pleasure (which consists in the joy of guessing bit by bit - le suggérer, voilà le rêve!).
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It is obvious that the newspaper produces the opinion of the readers.
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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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The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.
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Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.
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If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things.
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Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message.
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A newspaper can follow the compulsions, the desires of the readers. Take the English evening newspapers - they are following the readers' desires when they are interested only in the royal family gossip. But even the most objective, serious newspaper in the world designs the way in which the reader could or should think. That's unavoidable.
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The truth is a young maiden as modest as she is beautiful, and therefore she is always seen cloaked.
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I have a good memory. But I would be interested in memory even if I had a bad memory, because I believe that memory is our soul. If we lose our memory completely, we are without a soul.
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The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved. You cannot make a spoon that is better than a spoon... The book has been thoroughly tested, and it's very hard to see how it could be improved on for its current purposes.
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When your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies.
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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.
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