Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

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Daniel J. Boorstin

Profession : Historian

Birth : October 1, 1914

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

Daniel J. Boorstin

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.

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

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

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

Daniel J. Boorstin

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

Daniel J. Boorstin

The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

Daniel J. Boorstin

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 to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'

Daniel J. Boorstin

A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.

Daniel J. Boorstin

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 individual, institution, corporation, product or service.

Daniel J. Boorstin

As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.

Daniel J. Boorstin

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.

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

Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.

Daniel J. Boorstin

The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.

Daniel J. Boorstin

I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

Daniel J. Boorstin