The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
Human beings are religious animals.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humans have an inherent tendency towards spirituality and belief systems.
Umberto Eco's quote highlights the intrinsic nature of human beings to seek out and engage in religious or spiritual practices. It suggests that the quest for meaning, connection, and understanding of the universe is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human, often leading individuals to form beliefs that guide their moral and existential inquiries.
Themes
ReligionHuman NatureSpiritualityBeliefExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech discussing the importance of spirituality in human life.
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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.
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"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.
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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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I have no religion,β says Borneau, βbut I respect the religion of others. Religion is sacred.β Why this privilege, this immunity?... A believer creates God in his own image; if he is ugly, his God will be morally ugly. Why should moral ugliness be respectable?
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The body sleeps, the heart sleeps, the mind sleeps - but you remain alert because you are nothing else but alertness. Everything else is a false identification. Awareness is your nature. The body is your abode. The mind is your computer. Awareness;s you, is your very being.
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Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
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There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.
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Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
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