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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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We are all fundamentally equal souls, and if you make a zillion dollars, you're not any better than anybody else spiritually. You're still an equal soul.
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Highly educated young people are tutored, taught and monitored in all aspects of their lives, except the most important, which is character building. When it comes to this, most universities leave them alone.
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I could tell you that when you have trouble making up your mind about something, tell yourself you'll settle it by flipping a coin. But don't go by how the coin flips go by your emotional reaction to the coin flip. Are you happy or sad it came up heads or tails?
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Donald Trump's world view is that it's a dangerous, miserable place, people are out to get him, and he needs to strike them first.
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People who give money in large amount in politics are basically not altruistic.
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When you talk about the problem of illegal immigration, people are angry and polarized. When you talk about the answers, the debate gets a little different.
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Donald Trump's got to do some big changes, because what he was voted on. But when you think about how to do it, it would take massive expertise, which his people, believe me, do not have.
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I think Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana was a case of that, who was an outstanding administrator.
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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.
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People ask, quite legitimately, why [Betsy] DeVos and why not a lot of the others? But it's because it has to do with the special interest groups that run a lot of Washington.
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Just, as I have traveled around from school to school, whether it's project-based learning or an outward bound curriculum, it's very hard to tell the difference between charters and public anymore. There's no fine line.
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Even in this nuclear thing, [ Donald Trump] says we should be stronger and expand. What does that mean? So, what is concrete in what he's saying?
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Since 2005, a majority of Americans, according to the Gallup poll, have said it was wrong and a mistake to go into Iraq.
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To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.
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Economists sometimes do try to reduce behavior to law-like predictability. But people respond differently to different primes, to different contexts even from one moment to the next. We possess multiple selves that are aroused by different circumstances.
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Donald Trump's being authentic to what he ran on and what got elected.
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Some children lack tools to see their course in the world in far-sighted ways. Just introducing school vouchers won't change that. You have to have nurse-home partnerships, early childhood education, mentoring programs and so on. People learn from people they love.
David Brooks
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The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind.
David Brooks
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If Donald Trump wants to fire somebody for not getting Obamacare repealed, he should fire himself.
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The gun becomes this psychological totem, this thing of who I am. And it's almost as if using the gun is going to be the thing that's going to be my expression of how I make a difference in the world.
David Brooks