“We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions.”
Preface
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961)
Context: We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.
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Daniel J. Boorstin 39
American historian 1914–2004Related quotes
“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.”
“Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.”
“Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room.”
Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus.
Alternate translation: Not for life, but for school do we learn. (translator unknown)
Alternate translation: We are taught for the schoolroom, not for life. (translator unknown).
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CVI: On the corporeality of virtue, Line 12
“To man no suffering unexpected comes;
We hold our fortune but from day to day.”
Fragment 3
Fabulae Incertae
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)
Letter to Abigail Adams (3 July 1776)
1770s
Context: I am surprised at the suddenness as well as the greatness of this revolution... It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting, and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies, and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor, and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or they will be no blessings. The people will have unbounded power, and the people are extremely addicted to corruption and venality, as well as the great. But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.