"Stories, over the centuries, have been the most important way of
keeping our collective wisdom. They were and still are a sort of
universal brain where we can retrieve what we have forgotten and what
we still do not know. If you will allow me to use such a metaphor, a
library is the best possible imitation, by human beings, of a divine
mind, where the whole universe is viewed and understood at the same
time. A person able to store in his or her mind the information
provided by a great library would emulate in some way the mind of
God. In other words, we have invented libraries because we know that
we do not have divine powers, but we try to do our best to imitate
them."
- Umberto Eco, Vegetal and Mineral Memory: the Future of Books," a
lecture at the newly opened Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/bo3.htm]
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