# Daniel J. Boorstin - Quotes: 16 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin ## Books - [The Image](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image.md) — 16 quotes ## Recently added quotes > 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. p. 257 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/as-individuals-and.md) > 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. p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/celebrity-worship-and-hero-worship.md) > A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/a-celebrity-is-a-person.md) > 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. p. 261 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/we-must-first.md) > In the age of pseudo‑events it is less the artificial sim­plification than the artificial complication of experience that confuses us. Whenever in the public mind a pseudo‑event competes for attention with a spontaneous event in the same field, the pseudo‑event will tend to dominate. What happens on television will overshadow what happens off television. p. 39 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/in-the-age.md) > By a diabolical irony the very facsimiles of the world which we make on purpose to bring it within our grasp, to make it less elusive, have transported us into a new world of blurs. p. 213 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/by-a-diabolical.md) > A sign of a celebrity is often that his name is worth more than his services. p. 220 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/a-sign-of-a-celebrity.md) > 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. p. 245 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/of-all-nations.md) > 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. p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/pseudo-events-do-of-course.md) > The image, more interesting than its original, has become the original. The shadow has become the substance. p. 204 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/the-image-more.md) > 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/we-suffer-primarily.md) > The news leak is a pseudo‑event par excellence. In its origin and growth, the leak illustrates another axiom of the world of pseudo‑events: pseudo‑events produce more pseudo‑events. p. 31 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-j-boorstin/the-image/the-news-leak.md)