Quote

The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.

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
Facts
Illusion
Also
Effects
Time
Cause
Modern
Linear
Causes
Sequence
Belief
Directed
Fact
Producing
Running
Effect

More quotes by Umberto Eco

Image
Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.
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 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.
Umberto Eco
Image
Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats.
Umberto Eco
Image
The real hero is always a hero by mistake.
Umberto Eco
Image
He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating.
Umberto Eco
Image
My grandfather had a particularly important influence on my life, even though I didn't visit him often, since he lived about three miles out of town and he died when I was six. He was remarkably curious about the world, and he read lots of books.
Umberto Eco
Image
Then we are living in a place abandoned by God, I said, disheartened. Have you found any places where God would have felt at home? William asked me, looking down from his great height.
Umberto Eco
Image
A book is a fragile creature. It suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands.
Umberto Eco
Image
I have to admit that I only read War and Peace when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.
Umberto Eco
Image
The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar queen, alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades.
Umberto Eco
Image
I could work in the shower if I had plastic paper.
Umberto Eco
Image
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
Image
In the United States there's a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.
Umberto Eco
Image
The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.
Umberto Eco
Image
After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs.
Umberto Eco
Image
If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.
Umberto Eco
Image
By means of the sign, man frees himself from the here and now for abstraction.
Umberto Eco
Image
And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?
Umberto Eco
Image
I am an old consumer of papers. I cannot avoid reading my newspapers every morning.
Umberto Eco