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Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

Historian

Daniel J. Boorstin was an influential American historian known for his research on historical writing and public knowledge. His work emphasized the connection between history and contemporary life, as well as the role of historians in shaping public consciousness.

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Famous Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

“A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.”

Wells Book Selling Sellers Best Sellers

Author:Daniel J. Boorstin

“The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.”

Wells Persons Known

Author:Daniel J. Boorstin

“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.”

Source: The Image or What Happened to the American Dream

“The hero is known for achievements; the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.”

People Humans Wells Known Media Human Nature Possibility Hero Achievement News Presses Well Known

Author:Daniel J. Boorstin

“Being known primarily for their well-knownness, celebrities intensify their celebrity images simply by becoming widely known for relations among themselves. By a kind of symbiosis, celebrities live off one another.”

Wells Kind Persons Known Relation Idols Well Known Symbiosis

Author:Daniel J. Boorstin

“What is more natural in a democratic age than that we should begin to measure the stature of a work of art-especially of a painting-by how widely and how well it is reproduced?”

Should Wells Art Age Natural Painting Democratic Works Of Art Stature

Book:The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America

“Best-sellerism is the star system of the book world. A "best seller" is a celebrity among books. It is a book known primarily (sometimes exclusively) for its well-knownness.”

World Wells Book Sometimes Reading Stars Known Sellers Books And Reading Best Sellers

Book:The Image

Source: The Image

About the Author

Born: October 1, 1914
Died: February 28, 2004
Known for: Historian
Quotes: 127

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World Men America Hero Knowledge Book Humans Illusion People Ignorance Way Wells Atheism Ifs Made Nations Persons Reading Thinking Facts

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Books & Sources

The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in AmericaRelated source material

The DiscoverersRelated source material

The Lost World of Thomas JeffersonRelated source material

The ImageRelated source material

The Image or What Happened to the American DreamRelated source material

The Americans: The Democratic ExperienceRelated source material

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the ImaginationRelated source material

Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the UnexpectedRelated source material

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