Tag Archives: Umberto Eco

He Said That? 6/17/18

From Umberto Eco (1932–2016)Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor, Foucault’s Pendulum (1989):

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

He Said That? 4/3/18

From Umberto Eco (1932–2016), Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor The Name of the Rose (1980);

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him … These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame.

He Said That? 6/3/17

From Umberto Eco (1932–2016), Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor, The Name of the Rose (1980): 

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him … These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame.