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"After all, the fundamental question of philosophy (like that of psychoanalysis) is the same as the question of the detective novel: who is guilty?"
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"Each "way of thinking" has its own shape and color, which wax and wane like the moon."

"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure."

"Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology."

"I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system."

"When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman."
Explore more quotes by Umberto Eco


"The more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn't matter if things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret."


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


"There, Master Niketas,' Baudolino said, 'when I was not prey to the temptations of this world, I devoted my nights to imagining other worlds. A bit with the help of wine, and a bit with that of the green honey. There is nothing better than imagining other worlds,' he said, 'to forget the painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn't yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one."


"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."


"There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation."


"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."


"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."


"He is always on the brink of suicide... because he seeks salvation through the routine formulas suggested to him by the society in which he lives."


"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."


"I'd lost all faith in everything, except for the certainty that there's always someone behind our backs waiting to deceive us."
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