“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

Variant: A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.
Source: Trattato di semiotica generale (1975); [A Theory of Semiotics] (1976)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Umberto Eco 120
Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic… 1932–2016

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