823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?

The Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt.

Rzeczywiście, często się zdarza, że idzie się do biblioteki, bo chce się książkę o znanym tytule, ale główną funkcją biblioteki, a przynajmniej funkcją biblioteki w moim domu i w domach wszystkich znajomych, jakich możemy odwiedzać, jest odkrywanie książek, których istnienia się nie podejrzewało, a które, jak się okazuje, są dla nas niezwykle ważne.

So, I was in love. Or was I rather, as often happens at that age, in love with love?

The visitor enters and says, "What a lot of books! Have you read them all?" ...The best answer is the one always used by Roberto Leydi: "And more, dear sir, many more," which freezes the adversary and plunges him into a state of awed admiration. But I find it merciless and angst-generating. Now I have fallen back on the riposte: "No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month. I keep the others in my office.

We always have to blame our failures on somebody else, and dictatorships always need an external enemy to bind their followers together. As the man said, for every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.

He had perhaps seen fifty springs and was therefore already very old, but his tireless body moved with an agility I myself often lacked.

Во всех войнах, известных истории, народ, полагая свою войну праведной, горел желанием уничтожить врага. Теперь же безграничная информация не только расшатывает идеологию граждан, но и делает их уязвимыми пред видом страдания противника: смерть врага перестает быть далеким и неясным событием, а превращается в конкретное и совершенно непереносимое зрелище.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.