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

But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world.

— Umberto Eco

But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it?

— Umberto Eco

But why do some people support [the heretics]?" "Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power." "Is that why the church of Rome accuses all its adversaries of heresy?" "That is why, and that is also why it recognizes as orthodoxy any heresy it can bring back under its own control or must accept because the heresy has become too strong.

— Umberto Eco

But why, everybody asks, am I not blessed by fortune (or at least not as blessed as I would like to be)? Why have I not been favored like others who are less deserving? No one believes their misfortunes are attributable to any shortcomings of their own; that is why they must find a culprit.

— Umberto Eco

Can you call yourself a coward simply because the courage of others seems to you out of proportion to the triviality of the occasion? Thus, wisdom creates cowards. And thus you miss Opportunity while spending your life on the lookout for it.

— Umberto Eco

Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognito. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale.

— Umberto Eco

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously three old owls on a chest of drawers were screwing the daughter of the doctor. But then the mother called them, colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

— Umberto Eco

Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh; the more you have, the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time.

— Umberto Eco

Die Mensches tun was Bose nice so vollständig UND register, we went she ES AUS religious Überzeugung tun.

— Umberto Eco