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
discovery greatest ignorance illusion obstacle
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.
ignorance discovery obstacles
Throught human history, illusions of knowledge, not ignorance, have proven to be the principal obstacles to discovery
ignorance progress illusion
The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.
atheist ignorance humility
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.
ocean ignorance knowledge
The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.
war ignorance men
Probably no one of us has the True Religion. But all of us together - if we are allowed to be free - are discovering ways of conversing about the great mysteries. The pretense to know all the answers to the deepest mysteries is, of course, the grossest fraud. And any people who declare a Jihad, a holy war on unbelievers - those who do not share their believers' pretended omniscience - are enemies of thinking men and woman and of civilization. I see religion as only a way of asking unanswerable questions, of sharing the joy of a community of quest, and solacing one another in our ignorance.
knowledge commodity used
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
god responsibility interesting
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
travel expectations actors
Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives- from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango - with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to-date scripts for actors on the tourists' stage.
reading world dull
There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, 'How dull is the world today!' Nowadays he says, 'What a dull newspaper!'
interesting ruts needs
An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.
reading our-world world
By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves.
simple america important
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 surprises.
world lasts events
The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.