Daniel J. Boorstin
Daniel J. Boorstin
Daniel Joseph Boorstinwas an American historian at the University of Chicago, writing on many topics in American history and world history. He was appointed twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. He was instrumental in the creation of the Library of Congress Center for the Book...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth1 October 1914
CountryUnited States of America
love conceited america
As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.
life cute courage
The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.
night greatness born-leaders
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire PR officers.
idols symbiosis kind
A celebrity is a person known for his well-knownness. Celebrities intensify their celebrity images simply by being well known for relations among themselves. By a kind of symbiosis, celebrities live off each other.
real play age
The American citizen lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly irridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.
real confused hero
Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.
mean opportunity would-be
Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.
inspiring education wisdom
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.
knowledge commodity used
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
god responsibility interesting
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
discovery greatest ignorance illusion obstacle
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.