Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Daniel J. Boorstin
Age: 89 †
Born: 1914
Born: October 1
Died: 2004
Died: February 28
Biographer
Historian
Lawyer
Librarian
Philosopher
Sociologist
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
World
Mankind
American
Surprises
Simple
Addition
Fact
Prepare
Experience
Surprising
Facts
Helped
America
Surprise
Important
Later
More quotes by Daniel J. Boorstin
An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The hero is known for achievements the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The computer can help us find what we know is there. But the book remains our symbol and our resource for the unimagined question and the unwelcome answer.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
Daniel J. Boorstin
History had been man's effort to accomodate himself to what he could not do. Amereican history in the 20th century would, more than ever before, test man's ability to accomodate himself to all the new things he could do.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Formerly, a public man needed a private secretary for a barrier between himself and the public. Nowadays he has a press secretary, to keep him properly in the public eye.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Dispersed as the Jews are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in.
Daniel J. Boorstin
I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The hero was distinguished by his achievement the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man the celebrity is a big name.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Our discontent begins by finding false villains whom we can accuse of deceiving us. Next we find false heroes whom we expect to liberate us. The hardest, most discomfiting discovery is that each of us must emancipate himself.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Until now when we have started to talk about the uniqueness of America we have almost always ended by comparing ourselves to Europe. Toward her we have felt all the attraction and repulsions of Oedipus
Daniel J. Boorstin
Standing, standing, standing - why do I have to stand all the time? That is the main characteristic of social Washington.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.
Daniel J. Boorstin
I write to discover what I think.
Daniel J. Boorstin
More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.
Daniel J. Boorstin
A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.
Daniel J. Boorstin
