“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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Of all nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbou…" by Daniel J. Boorstin?

Daniel J. Boorstin 39

American historian 1914–2004

Related quotes

“The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Quoted in Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 107 (1950), ed. 26-52, p. 657

“Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US image than me, I really believe this. When I won the World Championship in '72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country. I turned all that around single-handedly”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, September 11 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_19_1.MP3
Context: Look at all I've done for the US. Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US image than me, I really believe this. When I won the World Championship in '72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country. I turned all that around single-handedly, right? But I was useful then because there was the Cold War, right? But now I'm not useful anymore, you see, the Cold War is over, and now they want to wipe me out, steal everything I have, put me in prison, and so on.

“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 (1914–2004) American historian

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

“All world-images are apt to become corrupt when left to ecclesiastic bureaucracies. But this does not make the formation of world-images expendable.”

Erik H. Erikson book Gandhi's Truth

Gandhi's Truth : On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969), Prologue : Echoes of an Event, p. 39
Context: All world-images are apt to become corrupt when left to ecclesiastic bureaucracies. But this does not make the formation of world-images expendable. And I can only repeat that we deny the remnants of old-world images at our own risk, because we do not overcome them by declaring them — with all the righteousness of skepticism — something of a secret sin. They are not less powerful for being denied.

“No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Harry Truman at Chicago, 17 March 1945, as recorded in Good Old Harry

“We should not see a Hansenite or a disabled person as a curse or burden. For us Christians, they are the grace and blessing of God, because they reflect the image of Christ.”

Eduardus Sangsun (1943–2008) Indonesian bishop (1943-2008)

Rehabilitation Clinic for Hansenites, Disabled Opens Seashore Park https://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/1997/07/24/rehabilitation-clinic-for-hansenites-disabled-opens-seashore-park&post_id=9812 (24 July 1997)

“No more words. We know them all, all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world more perfect.”

Terry Pratchett book Nation

Source: Nation

“We have a good image among the population - we should distinguish between voting and image, not everyone who appreciate us actually votes for us.”

Raid Jahid Fahmi (1950) Iraqi politician

Interview with Al Jazeera (25 May 2018)

“Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

First inaugural address (January 20, 1993), Washington, D.C.
1990s

“The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

July 1932 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ps_DtS_PFb4C&q=%22The+basis+of+insincerity+is+the+idealized+image+we+hold+of+ourselves+and+wish+to+impose+on+others%22&pg=PT141#v=onepage, The Diary Of Anaïs Nin, Volume One (1931-1934)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Daniel J. Boorstin 39

Related quotes

Related topics