Umberto Eco Quotes

True learning must not be content with ideas, which are, in fact, signs, but must discover things in their individual truth.

Writing doesn't mean necessarily putting words on a sheet of paper. You can write a chapter while walking or eating.

The only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.

What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.

Beauty is boring because it is predictable.

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.

Translation is the art of failure.

Books always speak of other books.

We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.

I have lost the freedom of not having an opinion.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

I don't miss my youth. I'm glad I had one, but I wouldn't like to start over.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list.

I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake.

For the enemy to be recognized and feared, he has to be in your home or on your doorstep.

Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart.

Love is wiser than wisdom.

What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

To survive, you must tell stories.

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

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

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

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

Every great thinker is someone else's moron.