"Libraries have always been humanities' way of preserving its collective wisdom"
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Quote collection
Umberto Eco quotes (page 5 of 19)
368 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"And we, inhabitants of the great coral of the Cosmos, believe the atom (which still we cannot see) to be full matter, whereas, it too, like everything else, is but an embroidery of voids in the Void, and we give the name of being, dense and even eternal, to that dance of inconsistencies, that infinite extension that is identified with absolute Nothingness and that spins from its own non-being the illusion of everything."
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"If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teach them how to use television."
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"To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time."
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"You’ll come back To me . . . It’s written in the stars, you see, you’ll come back. You’ll come back, it’s a fact that I am strong because I do believe in you."
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"I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts."
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"Writing doesn't mean necessarily putting words on a sheet of paper. You can write a chapter while walking or eating."
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"The only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth."
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"There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list."
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"The real hero is always a hero by mistake."
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"The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it."
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"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."
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"Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear."
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"Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race."
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"To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout."
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"I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed."
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"If culture did not filter, it would be inane - as inane as the formless, boundless Internet is on its own. And if we all possessed the boundless knowledge of the Web, we would be idiots! Culture is an instrument for making a hierarchical system of intellectual labor."
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"Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale."
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"He had prepared his death much earlier, in his imagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he, was planning the reality of that death."
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"You must overcome any shyness and have a conversation with the librarian, because he can offer you reliable advice that will save you much time. You must consider that the librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small. The more isolated and disregarded the library, the more the librarian is consumed with sorrow for its underestimation. A person who asks for help makes the librarian happy."
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