Daniel J. Boorstin > Quotes

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

“No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“I write to discover what I think”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“When we pick up the newspaper at breakfast, we expect - we even demand - that it brings us momentous events since the night before...We expect our two-week vacations to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless..We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy...to go to 'a church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“[Reading is like] the sex act—done privately, and often in bed.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“When I was living in England I found that the more I lived abroad, the more American I discovered I was.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin