Umberto Eco Quotes

A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself.

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

It belongs to the self-respect of intellect to pursue every tangle of thought to its final unravelment.

Thinking begins when you ask really difficult questions.

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems.

A philosopher is a person who doesn't care which side his bread is buttered on; he knows he eats both sides anyway.

I think, though, that we need to be armed with the critical thinking skills that lawyers and scientists and journalists such as yourself have. We all need to have those as we make our way through the day. And they're not that hard to acquire.

In exploring new and doubtful tracts of speculation, the mind strikes out true and original views; as a drop of water hesitates at first what direction it will take, but afterwards follows its own course.

It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.

Active minds that think and study, like swift brooks are seldom muddy.

Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.

To be a philosopher... is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

A philosophy is characterized more by the formulation of its problem than by its solution of them.

Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.

Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels.

"Edward, Edward," he said with a patronising smile, "there are no unanswered questions of any relevance. Every question that we need to ask has been answered fully. If you can't find the correct answer then you are obviously asking the wrong question."

I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.

For me writing is foremost a mode of thinking and when it works well, an act of discovery

Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable.

I don't believe in the sort of "Eureka!" moment idea. I think it's a myth. I'm very suspicious that actually Archimedes had been thinking about that problem for a long time.

When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.

I prefer to think of faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of disbelief". . . a willingness to be open, to explore, to investigate.

An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people-it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the burden of the mystery.

I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.