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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

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It is only a short step from exaggerating what we can find in the world to exaggerating our power to remake the world.
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Creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story- a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.
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An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.
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The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
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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!'
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Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
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Climaxing a movement for calendar reform which had been developing for at least a century, in 1582 Pope Gregory ordained that October 4 was to be followed by October 15.
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I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
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The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.
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I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.
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Best-sellerism is the star system of the book world. A best seller is a celebrity among books. It is a book known primarily (sometimes exclusively) for its well-knownness.
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. . . the messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.
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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
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The Christian test was a willingness to believe in the one Jesus Christ and His Message of salvation. What was demanded was not criticism but credulity. The Church Fathers observed that in the realm of thought only heresy had a history.
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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
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More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
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We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.
Daniel J. Boorstin
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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
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Americans expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly ... to revere God and be God.
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The hero created himself the celebrity is created by the media.
Daniel J. Boorstin