You cannot change the world with ideas. People with few ideas are less likely to make mistakes; they follow what everyone else does and are no troubl… - Umberto Eco

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You cannot change the world with ideas. People with few ideas are less likely to make mistakes; they follow what everyone else does and are no trouble to anyone; they're successful, make money, find good jobs, enter politics, receive honours; they become famous writers, academics, journalists. Can anyone who is so good at looking after their own interests really be stupid? I'm the stupid one, the one who wanted to go tilting at windmills.

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About Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian philosopher, semiotician, essayist, literary critic, and novelist, most famous for his novel The Name of the Rose (1980), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory.

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: Umberto Ecco • Umberto Eccounstino • Humberto Eco • Dedalus • Umberto Eko • Oumperto Eko • Eco Umberto • U. Eco
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Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.
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What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can't hurt and you might get better.
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