The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
When someone has to intervene to defend the liberty of the press, that society is sick.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that any need to defend press freedom indicates deeper societal issues.
Umberto Eco's quote implies that a healthy society should inherently respect and support the freedom of the press. When intervention is necessitated to protect this freedom, it points to underlying problems within the society that undermine democratic principles and civil liberties, marking a deterioration in societal health and integrity.
In practice
During a speech on freedom of expression, one could reference this quote to emphasize the importance of protecting press liberties.
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.
Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.
Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time. We are one day nearer Home today than we ever were before. I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.'
It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God.
Faith fills a man with love for the beauty of its truth, with faith in the truth of its beauty
It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.
A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place.
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