823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

It’s quite possible that mortality is simply the result of poor education.

De mens bedrijft het kwaad nooit zo hartstochtig en vol overgave als wanneer hij dat doet uit godsdienstige overtuiging.

He is always on the brink of suicide... because he seeks salvation through the routine formulas suggested to him by the society in which he lives.

...not everything can be a symbol. A symbol has to be textually produced; it requires a specific semiotic strategy. [...] . A symbolic strategy can produce aesthetic enjoyment, but it is first of all semiotic machinery.

Thus we have on stage two men, each of whom knows nothing of what he believes the other knows, and to deceive each other reciprocally both speak in allusions, each of the two hoping (in vain) that the other holds the key to his puzzle.

European identity, it seems, is only perceived by educated people. And that is sad, but it is a start.

We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we, too, would become Taliban.

The rest is just sex, copulation, the perpetuation of the vile species.

فقدتُ كلَّ يقين ، ما عدا اليقين بأنّه يوجد دائمًا وراء ظهرك شخصٌ يريدُ خداعَك