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When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more important than the ideas.

David Brooks

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David Brooks
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 22
Editor
Journalist
Politician
Pundit
City of Toronto
Way
Realizing
Knowing
Politics
Talk
Character
Cover
Ideas
Matters
Matter
Realize
Important
Hold

More quotes by David Brooks

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With a normal president like President [Barack] Obama, he says a word, and that's because there has been some thought that he's done and there had been policy papers and there's been aides and there's been advisers and then there is a connection to an actual set of policies. And so, the words like have roots into actual stuff.
David Brooks
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People generally don't suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer from PTSD after moral atrocities. Soldiers who've endured the depraved world of combat experience their own symptoms. Trauma is an expulsive cataclysm of the soul.
David Brooks
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A lot of people think Barack Obama should have responded to the Russian hacking of the U.S. elections weeks ago, months ago. So these happened on his watch. There's nothing wrong with him dealing with it.
David Brooks
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Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters they could just rely on the courts to impose their views.
David Brooks
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Maybe you're willing to tolerate a lot of bigotry from Donald Trump if you say, just change things, just change things.
David Brooks
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Institutions do all the things that are supposed to be bad. They impede personal exploration. They enforce conformity. But they often save us from our weaknesses and give meaning to life.
David Brooks
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[Donald Trump] has shifted - President [Barack] Obama has shifted American policy in a much more critical way in Israel with the settlements than the previous presidents.
David Brooks
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There are plenty of team players in government who do whatever the leader says. There are too few difficult members, who have complicated minds, unusual perspectives, the toughness to withstand the party-line barrages and a practical interest in producing results.
David Brooks
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It's important for presidents to emotionally connect, with the country in times of crisis, but also with people in Washington. If you can't emotionally connect - and [Barack] Obama is not the greatest, but he can at least do it - then people won't be with you when the times are hard.
David Brooks
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I do think Donald Trump is a fundamentally unstabilizing force and that the people who swore to uphold the Constitution are going to have to take some measures at some point.
David Brooks
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I wouldn't say philosophy and theology are dead. Brain science doesn't invent new philosophies but it helps remind us which of our existing philosophies are more true.
David Brooks
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The three people who are most often talked about with Hillary Clinton, whether it's Tim Kaine or Vilsack or Cory Booker, they are three extremely nice people.
David Brooks
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Donald Trump has a pre-modern monarchic family structure. His business is a monarchy with family members all around. His administration is a monarchy with family members all around.
David Brooks
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I really think of [Donald] Trump erratic. I think that was the big message that came out. The positive agenda for Hillary [Clinton] was a little less vibrant.
David Brooks
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Most people don't form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.
David Brooks
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Charter schools are public schools. They're paid for publicly and they're part of the public system. They just have a more independent structure.
David Brooks
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I've come to think that flourishing consists of putting yourself in situations in which you lose self-consciousness and become fused with other people, experiences, or tasks.
David Brooks
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I'm not the most emotionally attuned guy in the world. My wife says that me writing about emotion is like Gandhi writing about gluttony.
David Brooks
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Freedom without structure is its own slavery.
David Brooks
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If Donald Trump wants to fire somebody for not getting Obamacare repealed, he should fire himself.
David Brooks