Daniel J. Boorstin: Image

Daniel J. Boorstin was American historian. Explore interesting quotes on image.
Daniel J. Boorstin: 78   quotes 4   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.

Age , World , Reality

“We must first awake before we can walk in the right direction. We must discover our illusions before we can even realize that we have been sleepwalking. The least and the most we can hope for is that each of us may penetrate the unknown jungle of images in which we live our daily lives. That we may discover anew where dreams end and where illusions begin. This is enough. Then we may know where we are, and each of us may decide for himself where he wants to go.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 261.

Dreams , Hope

“Pseudo‑events do, of course, increase our illusion of grasp on the world, what some have called the American illusion of omnipotence. Perhaps, we come to think, the world’s problems can really be settled by “statements,” by “Summit” meetings, by a competition of “prestige,” by overshadowing images, and by political quiz shows.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 44.

World , Problem , Thinking

“As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America. has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 257.

Love , Suffering

“Of all nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 245.

World , Hope , Perfection

“The image, more interesting than its original, has become the original. The shadow has become the substance.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 204.