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Throught human history, illusions of knowledge, not ignorance, have proven to be the principal obstacles to discovery
Daniel J. Boorstin
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Daniel J. Boorstin
Age: 89 †
Born: 1914
Born: October 1
Died: 2004
Died: February 28
Biographer
Historian
Lawyer
Librarian
Philosopher
Sociologist
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Illusion
Ignorance
Knowledge
History
Illusions
Human
Proven
Humans
Principal
Obstacles
Discovery
More quotes by Daniel J. Boorstin
Historians will not fail to note that a people who could spend $300 billion on defense refused to spend a tiny fraction of that total to keep their libraries open in the evening.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Being known primarily for their well-knownness, celebrities intensify their celebrity images simply by becoming widely known for relations among themselves. By a kind of symbiosis, celebrities live off one another.
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
What is more natural in a democratic age than that we should begin to measure the stature of a work of art-especially of a painting-by how widely and how well it is reproduced?
Daniel J. Boorstin
We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.
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
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
The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita, unknown territory.
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
While knowledge is orderly and cumulative, information is random and miscellaneous.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.
Daniel J. Boorstin
When I was living in England I found that the more I lived abroad, the more American I discovered I was.
Daniel J. Boorstin
The hero created himself the celebrity is created by the media.
Daniel J. Boorstin
There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, 'How dull is the world today!' Nowadays he says, 'What a dull newspaper!'
Daniel J. Boorstin
The modern American tourist now fills his experience with pseudo-events. He has come to expect both more strangeness and more familiarity than the world naturally offers. He has come to believe that he can have a lifetime of adventure in two weeks and all the thrills of risking his life without any real risk at all.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Where ruts have not yet been worn, it requires less effort to stay out of them.
Daniel J. Boorstin
While the easiest way in metaphysics is to condemn all metaphysics as nonsense, the easiest way in morals is to elevate the common practice of the community into a moral absolute.
Daniel J. Boorstin
When the necessary eleven days were added, George Washington’s birthday, which fell on February 11, 1731, Old Style, became February 22, 1732, New Style.
Daniel J. Boorstin
In the small town each citizen had done something in his own way to build the community. The town booster had a vision of the future which he tried to fulfill. The suburb dweller by contrast started with the future
Daniel J. Boorstin
Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
Daniel J. Boorstin
