823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.

All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.

The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.

There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can't hurt and you might get better.

The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.

It is a myth of publishers that people want to read easy things.