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Daniel J. Boorstin Biography

Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004) was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. He was instrumental in the creation of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.

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Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

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

Achieve, Born, Born Leaders, Greatness, Night

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

Bars, Discover, Thinking, Write, Writing

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

Build, Citizens, Community, Contrast, Tried, Visions Of The Future

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

Drive, Drown, Fun, Knowledge, Science

By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves.

Discover, History, Our World, Reading, World

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

Lying, Bed, Politics, Make, Lie

destruction is easy for humans but creation is too difficult.

Creation, Destruction, Difficult, Easy

While knowledge is orderly and cumulative, information is random and miscellaneous.

Cumulative, Information, Knowledge, Miscellaneous

A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.

Celebrity, Dignity, Fame, Names, Services, Sign

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.

Atheist, Burned, Fanatics, Humility, Ignorance, Stake

Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.

Explicit, Models, Moral, Persuasive, Vivid

Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.

Real, Reality, Television, Unless, Happens

American civilization, from its beginnings, had combined a dogmatic confidence in the future with a naive puzzlement over what the future might bring.

Bring, Civilization, Dogmatic, Future, Might, Naive

Not so many years ago there was no simpler or more intelligible notion than that of going on a journey. Travel -movement through space -provided the universal metaphor for change. One of the subtle confusions -perhaps one of the secret terrors -of modern life is that we have lost this refuge. No longer do we move through space as we once did.

Change, Life, Longer, Lost, Space, Travel

Books are messengers of freedom. They can be hidden under a mattress or smuggled into slave nations.

Book, Messengers, Nations, Slave, Under

The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

Confirms, Ignorance, Illusion, Progress, Western

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.

Corporations, Design, Individual, Personality, Trademark

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.

Christian, Father, Fathers, Heresy, Jesus, Message

. . . the messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.

Experience, May, Mean, Messiness

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.

Practice, Community, Way, Easiest, Morals, Condemn

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