Quote

We live in a culture that encourages us to be big about ourselves, and I think the starting point of trying to build inner goodness is to be a little bit smaller about yourself.

David Brooks

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

David Brooks
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 22
Editor
Journalist
Politician
Pundit
City of Toronto
Point
Thinking
Bigs
Encourages
Culture
Smaller
Littles
Goodness
Live
Inner
Little
Starting
Build
Trying
Bits
Think

More quotes by David Brooks

Image
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
Image
For the Republican Convention, I think of Trump's speech and sort of the darkness, the fear of crime, the need for a strong arm really, and so that one core theme.
David Brooks
Image
My colleague Ross Douthat wrote that any time you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he always lets you down.
David Brooks
Image
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
Image
On the [Betsy] DeVos case, I agree that the gun - her gun position is kind of weird, kind of crazy, but I do think she does know about public schools.
David Brooks
Image
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
Image
A wise soul once declared that the ultimate power of the writer is that he has the choice of whom he wants to be co-opted by.
David Brooks
Image
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
Image
Our system is not only based on rules, but a series of self-restraints that we won't be as barbaric as we could be in competing for power because we know if we're all barbaric as we could be, the whole country and the whole society falls apart.
David Brooks
Image
Clearly, politics is a team sport. Trump is not so much of a team player.
David Brooks
Image
Of those two [Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump], I do think that the - right now, at least in my mind, the Democratic theme is eclipsing the Republican one.
David Brooks
Image
Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.
David Brooks
Image
I don't blame the Democrats for fighting. They have got a very energized base. And there is a lot to complain about a lot of these nominees. But I think, if you are actually going to turn someone down from a president's [Donald Trump] own Cabinet, it better be a lot more egregious than the cases we have seen.
David Brooks
Image
Through American history, we have had populist movements that often, often, often have this ugly racial element. But, often, there are warning signs of some deeper social and economic problem.
David Brooks
Image
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.
David Brooks
Image
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.
David Brooks
Image
As for multimillionaires [in Donald Trump's Administration], a lot of us hope to be a multimillionaire some day. Again, spotty records, but it seems to be not without the range.
David Brooks
Image
I think as we interpret him and frankly as the world learns to interpret Donald Trump, are these just words that are enigmatic things floating on air or are they actually shifts in policy and will they change moment by moment, day by day without any underlying connection to the actual stuff of governance? I don't know.
David Brooks
Image
Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation.
David Brooks
Image
When a president speaks that usually means a lot.
David Brooks