The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
Libraries can take the place of God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that libraries hold immense power in shaping knowledge and understanding, akin to a divine influence.
Umberto Eco's assertion that 'libraries can take the place of God' emphasizes the fundamental role of libraries as sanctuaries of knowledge, wisdom, and truth. In an age where information can be readily accessed, libraries serve as bastions of learning, fostering intellectual growth and offering a diverse array of perspectives that can shape one's worldview. The quote highlights the almost sacred nature of libraries, paralleling them with religious places by suggesting that they can guide morality, understanding, and enlightenment.
Themes
LibrariesKnowledgeWisdomLearningTruth
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of public services, a leader could cite this quote to advocate for library funding.
More from Umberto Eco
All quotes βI think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it. Thankfully I gave up rather quickly.
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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.
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You die, but most of what you have accumulated will not be lost; you are leaving a message in a bottle.
Umberto EcoRead
"Then we are living in a place abandoned by God," I said, disheartened. "Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?" William asked me, looking down from his great height.
Umberto EcoRead
The lunatic is all idΓ©e fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Umberto EcoRead
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To ask "Where in your brain is intelligence?" is like asking "Where is the voice in the radio?"
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We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now... but it will grow again... like the trees.
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The Same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.
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I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
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The most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendents not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships, or being patronised by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it.
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In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
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