Philosophies can be judged, at most, on the grounds of the perspicacity with which they decide that something is worthy of becoming the starting point for a global explanatory hypothesis.
~ Umberto Eco

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A mystic is a hysteric who has met her confessor before her doctor.
~ Umberto Eco

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To survive, you must tell stories.
~ Umberto Eco

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When men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.
~ Umberto Eco

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Philosophical entities exist only insofar as they have been philosophically posited. Outside their philosophical framework, the empirical data that a philosophy organizes lose every possible unity and cohesion.
~ Umberto Eco

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The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed.
~ Umberto Eco

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Donald Trump’s rabid animosity energised The Apprentice. The show’s ethos was supposedly aspirational, but success proved less telegenic than the gloating spectacle of failure: at the climax of every episode he eliminated losers by abusively booming: “You’re fired!” This catchphrase became a clarion call.
~ Peter Conrad via The Guardian

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All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.
~ Umberto Eco

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very time someone complains that our new prime minister is boring, I rue the day that politics became a performing art.
~ Peter Conrad via The Guardian

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