The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
If people buy my books for vanity, I consider it a tax on idiocy.
Interpretation
The quote critiques superficial motivations for purchasing literature, suggesting a disdain for vanity-driven choices.
Umberto Eco expresses his belief that when individuals purchase his books for reasons rooted in vanity rather than for genuine appreciation of the content, it reflects poorly on their judgment. He views these purchases as a 'tax on idiocy,' implying that valuing appearances over substance is a misguided approach to literature and life.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of genuine understanding in education.
The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
I 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.
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.
You die, but most of what you have accumulated will not be lost; you are leaving a message in a bottle.
"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.
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.
One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.
When God's hand is on thy back, let thy hand be on thy mouth, for though the affliction be sharp it shall be but short.
I always say that one has no right to hope without endeavor.
Vision is perhaps our greatest strength.. it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought through the centuries, it makes us peer into the future and lends shape to the unknown.
Remember: if you can cease all restless activity, your integral nature will appear.
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
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