Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

Certainty is the enemy of mankind. If you're certain about everything, you have the Inquisition, you have Nazis and you have - that certainty is something to be guarded about.

Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source.

Belief is tricky because left to its own devices, it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.

The older I get, the less I know. By that I mean the less I am sure of. I view people with strong opinions on the big stuff with distrust. I don't think we should have certain certainties on faith and politics; I think we should be open-minded.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...

Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism.

You don’t have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is “I don’t know”.

Intellectual modesty is humility as to what I know; intellectual humility is modesty as to what I do not know

Only the fools are certain and assured.

The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.

Anti-clericalism and non-belief, have their bigots just as orthodoxy does.

The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure'.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.