“If by intellectual you mean somebody who works only with his head and not with his hands, then the bank clerk is an intellectual and Michelangelo is not. And today, with a computer, everybody is an intellectual. So I don’t think it has anything to do with someone’s profession or with someone’s social class. According to me, an intellectual is anyone who is creatively producing new knowledge. A peasant who understands that a new kind of graft can produce a new species of apples has at that moment produced an intellectual activity. Whereas the professor of philosophy who all his life repeats the same lecture on Heidegger doesn’t amount to an intellectual. Critical creativity—criticizing what we are doing or inventing better ways of doing it—is the only mark of the intellectual function.”
More from Umberto Eco
“How peaceful life would be without love. How safe. How tranquil. And how very dull.”
“For the enemy to be recognized and feared, he has to be in your home or on your doorstep.”
“Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages… a beautiful…”
“Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh; the more you have the more you want, and yet…”