it isn't that they believe in nothing; they believe in everything (5 January 2016)

Umberto Eco's thoughts were born, with him, this day in 1932

such as

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

- Umberto Eco

James Gallagher collage

&

When [we] stop believing in God, it isn't that [we] believe in nothing; [we] believe in everything

- Umberto Eco

&

Joseph Cornell assemblage

Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale.

- Umberto Eco

&

I have come to believe that the whole world is ... a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Fiona Hall, Paradisus Terrestris