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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.

— Umberto Eco Trattato di semiotica generale (1975)

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Variants

A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.

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Truth

More quotes by Umberto Eco

A philosophy has a practical power: it contributes to the changing of the world.

Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist.

Ur-Fascism (1995)

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis.

Indeterminacy, complementarity, noncausality are not modes of being in the physical world, but systems for describing it in a convenient way.

The Role of the Reader : Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (1979)

One should not have the arrogance to declare that God does not exist.

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You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

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False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

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I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Umberto Eco (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.