Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I think Americans expect optimism in their leadership. The most popular and effective leaders, whether it was Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or Jack Kennedy, brought to it a sense of optimism and possibility.
David Brooks
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
David Brooks
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 22
Editor
Journalist
Politician
Pundit
City of Toronto
Americans
Bill
Possibility
Effective
Leadership
Popular
Leader
Bills
Ronald
Whether
Leaders
Kennedy
Sense
Brought
Reagan
Think
Expect
Jack
Thinking
Clinton
Optimism
More quotes by David Brooks
America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams.
David Brooks
The politics is broken up and down. And Trump may emerge from a reality TV world that is much more powerful than we think. And there is the prospect that this is where we are, which is an horrific thought.
David Brooks
President-elect [Donald] Trump's ambassador to Israel is further to the right than almost anyone in Israel, further to the right than Bibi Netanyahu on the settlements, and almost opposes the two-state solution, doesn't he?
David Brooks
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
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen seem to have no respect for the institutions that were created after World War II, and they see a potential alliance of populists around the world who would fight Islam and restore a certain semblance of traditional values.
David Brooks
Most poverty and suffering - whether in a country, a family or a person - flows from disorganization. A stable social order is an artificial accomplishment, the result of an accumulation of habits, hectoring, moral stricture and physical coercion. Once order is dissolved, it takes hard measures to restore it
David Brooks
I think that it's an arguable position, whether with Hamas and ISIS around, whether there should be a Palestinian state, but it's a defensible position, given the current circumstances.
David Brooks
What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.
David Brooks
Trade has suddenly become massively unpopular. I think that's massively unjust. I think free trade has been wonderful for America on balance.
David Brooks
Most poor people in America are white. The family breakdown issue is an issue that crosses all sorts of racial lines. High school dropout issues. But because of the flow of events which involve the racial component, we've sometimes confused racial issues with other issues which are trans-racial.
David Brooks
The message of the summoned life is that you don't need to panic if you don't yet know what you want to do with your life. But you probably want to throw yourselves into circumstances where the summons will come.
David Brooks
How can we expect young people to be rooted in things such as character, morality and honesty? How is one supposed to be at once an arrow soaring skyward and an oak planted firmly in the ground? The meritocratic culture hones strivers on every aspect of their lives save one - how to cultivate character.
David Brooks
I think Donald Trump is going to find it very hard to do the kind of massive change he wants.
David Brooks
I generally think debates within a party should not be treated as a scandal. They should be treated as a sign of strength, to be honest.
David Brooks
Woe to you who insults the intelligence community, if you're president.
David Brooks
[Donald Trump] will be the one on offense. He will be the one serving volleys, and it may be some weird stuff about the Russians, but he will be controlling things a little more than he probably did over the last two weeks.
David Brooks
Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.
David Brooks
Republicans are living in a hermetically sealed Republican universe, just as Democrats are. And so they're responding to their own universe, even if it leads to electoral downfall.
David Brooks
It’s only useful to ask, what wisdom have you learned from your misjudgments that will help you going forward?
David Brooks
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.
David Brooks