A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection - not an invitation for hypnosis. Umberto Eco More Quotes by Umberto Eco More Quotes From Umberto Eco When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. Umberto Eco atheist men believe There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four. Umberto Eco mad four stupid If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot. Umberto Eco idiot things-change ifs The problem with the Internet is that it gives you everything - reliable material and crazy material. So the problem becomes, how do you discriminate? Umberto Eco crazy problem giving Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big. Umberto Eco inspirational love relationship All the blogs, Facebook, Twitter are made by people who want to show their own private affairs at the price of making fakes, to try to appear such as they are not, to construct another personality, which is a veritable loss of identity. Umberto Eco fake loss people I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. Umberto Eco fathers-day dad believe Given that there are seven billion people living on this earth, there is a consistent quantity of imbecile or idiot, okay. Previously, these people could express themselves only with their friends or at the bar after two or three glasses of something, and they said every silliness, and people laughed. Now they have the possibility to show up on the internet. And so, on the internet, along with the messages of a lot of interesting and important people - even the Pope is writing on Twitter - we have a great quantity of idiots. Umberto Eco glasses writing two Originality and creativity are nothing but the result of the wise management of combinations. The creative genius combines more rapidly, and with a greater critical sense of what gets tossed out and what gets saved, the same material that the failed genius has to work with. Umberto Eco creativity creative wise We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That's why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It's a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die. Umberto Eco escaping want way Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings. Umberto Eco language matter feelings To survive, you must tell stories. Umberto Eco story-writers stories Dan Brown, is a character from Foucault's Pendulum! I invented him. He shares my characters' fascinations - the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist. Umberto Eco knights secret character Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes.... Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications. Umberto Eco army communication country Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart. Umberto Eco tests spirit heart I love the smell of book ink in the morning. Umberto Eco good-morning smell book We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. Umberto Eco scrap littles What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss. Umberto Eco heart love men I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of. Umberto Eco assuming intelligent book Sometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, "How are you, you old scoundrel!" clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel. Umberto Eco serious sometimes mean
