01c. 1974 ADSo, Colonna, please demonstrate to our friends how it's possible to respect, or appear to respect, one fundamental principle of democratic journalism, which is separating fact from opinion. ...''Simple,' I said. 'Take the major British or American newspapers. If they report, say, a fire or a car accident, then obviously they can't indulge in saying what they think. And so they introduce into the piece, in quotation marks, the statements of a witness, a man in the street, someone who represents public opinion. Those statements, once put in quotes, become facts - in other words, it's a fact that that person expressed that opinion. But it might be assumed that the journalist has only quoted someone who thinks like him. So there will be two conflicting statements to show, as a fact, that there are varying opinions on a particular issue, and the newspaper is taking account of this irrefutable fact. The trick lies in quoting first a trivial opinion and then another opinion that is more respectable, and more closely reflects the journalist's view. In this way, readers are under the impression that they are being informed about two facts, but they're persuaded to accept just one view as being more convincing.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
02c. 1974 ADAnd in that moment I experience a revelation.I realize now that it was a painful sense that the world is purposeless, the lazy fruit of a misunderstanding, but in that moment I was able to translate what I felt only as: "God does not exist.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
03c. 1974 ADIt's not the news that makes the newspaper, but the newspaper that makes the news.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
04c. 1974 ADA conversation between Adso and William -You understand, Adso, I must believe that my proposition works, because I learned it by experience; but to believe it I must assume there are universal laws. Yet I cannot speak of them, because the very concept that universal laws and an established order exist would imply that God is their prisoner, whereas God is something absolutely free, so that if He wanted, with a single act of His will He could make the world different.""And so, if I understand you correctly, you act, and you know why you act, but you don't know know why you know that you know what you do?"I must say with pride that William gave me a look of admiration. "Perhaps that's it. In any case, this tells you why I feel so uncertain of my truth, even if I believe in it.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
05c. 1974 ADThe point is that newspapers are not there for spreading news but for covering it up. X happens, you have to report it, but it causes embarrassment for too many people, so in the same edition you add some shock headlines - mother kills four children, savings at risk of going up in smoke, letter from Garibaldi insulting his lieutenant Nino Bixio discovered, etc. - so news drowns in a great sea of information.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
06c. 1974 ADYou are always born under the wrong sign, and to live in this world properly you have to rewrite your own horoscope day by day.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
07c. 1974 ADReligion has nothing to do with God. It's a fundamental attitude of human beings, who ask about the origins of life and what happens after death. For many, the answer is a personal god. In my opinion, it's religion that produces God, not the other way round.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
09c. 1974 ADThe real hero is always a hero by mistake he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
10c. 1974 ADThe comic is the perception of the opposite humor is the feeling of it.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
11c. 1974 ADBerlusconi is a genius in communication. Otherwise, he would never have become so rich.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
12c. 1974 ADSemiotics is a general theory of all existing languages... all forms of communication - visual, tactile, and so on... There is general semiotics, which is a philosophical approach to this field, and then there are many specific semiotics.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
14c. 1974 ADCaptain 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.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
15c. 1974 ADHistory is rich with adventurous men, long on charisma, with a highly developed instinct for their own interests, who have pursued personal power - bypassing parliaments and constitutions, distributing favours to their minions, and conflating their own desires with the interests of the community.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
16c. 1974 ADBut 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 / quote ↗
18c. 1974 ADMusical compositions can be very sad - Chopin - but you have the pleasure of this sadness. The cheap consolation is: you will be happy. The higher consolation is the pleasure and recognition of your unhappiness, the pleasure of having recognised that fate, destiny and life are such as they are and so you reach a higher form of consciousness.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
19c. 1974 ADI have to admit that I only read 'War and Peace' when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
20c. 1974 ADSometimes 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.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
21c. 1974 ADIn 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 / quote ↗
22c. 1974 ADPoetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
23c. 1974 ADWhen the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.Umberto Eco / quote ↗
