Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

88 quotes in 1407 categories

• The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.
• Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
• A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.
• I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.
• 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…
• The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen…
• An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an…
• Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
• A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.
• 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…
• Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.
• The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.
• A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.
• The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
• Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.
• Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
• The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.
• The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.
• 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…
• We read advertisements... to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new…

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