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
world emptiness made
God is the celebrity author of the world's best seller. We have made god into the biggest celebrity of all, to contain our own emptiness.
ignorant belief abandon
We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.
life moving journey
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.
moving america progress
In fast-moving, progress-conscious America, the consumer expects to be dizzied by progress. If he could completely understand advertising jargon he would be badly disappointed. The half-intelligibility which we expect, or even hope, to find in the latest product language personally reassures each of us that progress is being made: that the pace exceeds our ability to follow.
nature facts fabrication
What preoccupies us, then, is not God as a fact of nature, but as a fabrication useful for a God-fearing society. God himself becomes not a power but an image.
knowledge information miscellaneous
While knowledge is orderly and cumulative, information is random and miscellaneous.
atheist atheism agnostic
No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
photography dream real
The most refined skills of color printing, the intricate techniques of wide-angle photography, provide us pictures of trivia bigger and more real than life. We forget that we see trivia and notice only that the reproduction is so good. Man fulfils his dream and by photographic magic produces a precise image of the Grand Canyon. The result is not that he adores nature or beauty the more. Instead he adores his camera - and himself.
knowing desire advertising
We read advertisements... to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it.
calendars movement october
Climaxing a movement for calendar reform which had been developing for at least a century, in 1582 Pope Gregory ordained that October 4 was to be followed by October 15.
style february eleven
When the necessary eleven days were added, George Washington’s birthday, which fell on February 11, 1731, Old Style, became February 22, 1732, New Style.
territory maps humans
The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita, unknown territory.
feelings
More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowledge.
book answers helping
The computer can help us find what we know is there. But the book remains our symbol and our resource for the unimagined question and the unwelcome answer.