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41 " Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names. "
― Umberto Eco , The Name of the Rose
42 " Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequentur. grasp the words, and the subject will follow. "
43 " A narrator should not supply interpretations of his work; otherwise he would have not written a novel, which is a machine for generating interpretations. "
44 " How peaceful life would be without Love, Adso. How Safe. How Tranquil. And how Dull. "
45 " I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: "But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primogenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist? "
46 " This, in fact, is the power of the imagination, which, combining the memory of gold with that of the mountain, can compose the idea of a golden mountain. "
47 " I returned to the courtyard and saw that the sun had grown weaker. Beautiful and clear as it had been, the morning (as the day approached the completion of its first half) was becoming damp and misty. Heavy clouds moved from the north and were invading the top of the mountain, covering it with a light brume. It seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from below and those that come down from above. It was becoming hard to discern the bulk of the more distant buildings. "
48 " لا أعرف شيئا ليس هناك شيئ أعلمه .و إنما بعض الأشياء يحسها المرء بقلبه , أترك قلبك يتكلم ,إسأل الوجوه و لا تستمع إلى الألسن "
49 " stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus "
50 " السذج دواب تُساق إلى المجزرة، يُستعملون عندما يراد وضع سلطة الخصم في أزمة، و يُضحى بهم عندما تنتهي الحاجة إليهم. "
51 " There was no plot... and I discovered it by mistake. "
52 " penitenziagite! watch out for the draco who cometh in futurum to gnaw your anima! death is super nos! pray the santo pater come to liberar nos a malo and all our sin! ha ha, you like this negromanzia de domini nostri jesu christi! et anco jois m'es dols e plazer m'es dolors...cave el diabolo! semper lying in wait for me in some angulum to snap at my heels. but salvatore is not stupidus! bonum monsasterium, and aqui refectorium and pray to dominum nostrum. and the resto is not worth merda. amen. no? "
53 " And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our reason was created by God, and whatever pleases our reason can but please divine reason, of which, for that matter, we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation. "
54 " three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body works. "
55 " And so I fell devoutly asleep and slept a long time, because young people seem to need sleep more than the old, who have already slept so much and are preparing to sleep for all eternity. "
56 " On sober reflection, I find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of an obscure, neo-Gothic French version of a seventeenth century Latin edition of a work written in Latin by a German Monk toward the end of the fourteenth century...First of all, what style should I employ? "
57 " The young no longer want to study anything, learning is in decline, the whole world walks on its head, blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss, birds leave the nest before they can fly, the jackass plays the lyre, oxen dance. "
58 " The simple are meat for slaughter, to be used when they are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power, and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use. "
59 " لعلها شيخوختي الحالية هي التي تجعلني أشعر - وأنا آثم في ذلك - بأن كل ما عشته في شبابي كان جميلاً وصالحاً . "
60 " The simple cannot choose their personal heresy, Adso; they cling to the man preaching in their land, who passes through their village or stops in their square. "