"When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything."
"There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition."
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Source: Umberto Eco (1986). “Faith in Fakes: Essays”, Harvill Secker
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