Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.

Knowing and assuming are two different things.

Which country is real, mine or the teacher's? My wish is that we might progressively lose our confidence in what we think we believe and the things we consider stable and secure, in order to remind ourselves of the infinite number of things still waiting to be discovered.

Suspecting and knowing are not the same.

The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose.

The truth is the truth. What changes is what we know about it and what we're willing to believe.

Some men are just as sure of the truth of their opinions as are others of what they know.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed.

We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.

When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence.

We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

The things of which we want the proof are those we know the best.

... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.

Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the anxioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it.

I do not believe...I know.

Who are you? You don't belong to the police?' 'I am better than the police,' said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.

All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof! All things are known because we want to believe in them.

I have throughout been curious about how much we can be said to know and with what degree of certainty or doubtfulness.

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.

Can I reject everything my brain experienced? Is intellectual understanding any understanding at all?

Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present.