19 Quotes By Umberto Eco


Translation is the art of failure.
Umberto Eco on art

Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.
Umberto Eco on courage

We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.
Umberto Eco on death

The real hero is always a hero by mistake he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
Umberto Eco on dreams

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

There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past.
Umberto Eco on experience

Translation is the art of failure.
Umberto Eco on failure

Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.
Umberto Eco on fear

Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.
Umberto Eco on fear

From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history.
Umberto Eco on history

The comic is the perception of the opposite humor is the feeling of it.
Umberto Eco on humor

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.
Umberto Eco on learning

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.
Umberto Eco on nature

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.
Umberto Eco on success

But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco on truth

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco on truth

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.
Umberto Eco on truth

Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.
Umberto Eco on truth

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.
Umberto Eco on war