Daniel J. Boorstin: Greatness

Daniel J. Boorstin was American historian. Explore interesting quotes on greatness.
Daniel J. Boorstin: 78 quotes4 likes

“The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 37.

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

Daniel J. Boorstin

This "aphorism" was expressed in different forms by Josh Billings and Socrates. note: Often misquoted as, "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge," and often misattributed to Stephen Hawking.
Source: Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpected (1995).

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

Daniel J. Boorstin

As quoted in Book of Humorous Quotations (1998), by Connie Robertson, p. 29.

“Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948), Ch. 4, Part 1: Natural History and Political Science, p. 178.

“Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 48.

“The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.”

Daniel J. Boorstin book The Discoverers

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself, Random House, 1983, p. 86.