Umberto Eco Quotes on Truth
Umberto Eco was an Italian philosopher, semiotician, novelist, and one of the most widely read public intellectuals of his time. This page collects quotes attributed to Umberto Eco on the topic of truth, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Umberto Eco:
“Every text is a lazy machine asking the reader to do part of its work.”
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Attributed to Umberto Eco:
“Translation is the art of failure.”
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Attributed to Umberto Eco:
“There are limits to interpretation, and they are inscribed in the text itself.”
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“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie . If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth : it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.”
Trattato di semiotica generale (1975); [ A Theory of Semiotics ] (1976) | Variant: A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie. -
“Variant: A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.”
Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie . If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth : it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.