Not that the incredulous person doesn’t believe in anything. It’s just that he doesn’t believe in everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and methodical, avoiding wide horizons. If two things don’t fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that’s credulity.
Incredulity doesn’t kill curiosity; it encourages it. Though distrustful of logical chains of ideas, I loved the polyphony of ideas. As long as you don’t believe in them, the collision of two ideas — both false — can create a pleasing interval, a kind of diabolus in Musica. I had no respect for some ideas people were willing to stake their lives on, but two or three ideas that I did not respect might still make a nice melody. Or have a goot beat, and if it was jazz, all the better.
— Umberto Eco, from Foucault’s Pendulum
Random Posts
- If you would make a differenceSo many look around the globe and say, “How can I start to help in what small way I can, and find work with a …
- A Simple Rule: tercetThere is for life a very simple rule: stand up when you must stand, and then lay down; the grave awaits the king, wise man, …
- On the SonnetA simple set of fourteen locking lines, deceptively so easy to flesh out, much like arranging a flowering vine, ordered with care and neatly pruned. …
- If you would make a difference
Most Shared Posts
- If what is real is unseen by the eyeand what surrounds us each day is a dream;if striving is just fi0 Shares
Recent Comments
- Irene on Some ancient affirmations
- Rekha on No More Sad Weepings of Regret
- Novena on Wake Up: sonetto rispetto
- John on On the Veranda: serenade
Blogroll