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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

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

More quotes by David Brooks

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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
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Often, I go and see films where I can see the beats coming. So, if I read something where I don't see the beats coming and it takes me somewhere unexpected, that's a great thing to build upon.
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It's just a lot safer to be an incumbent. So I think they have used the campaign finance reforms. They have passed laws that will help themselves stay in office. And I think that's one of the flaws that we do have in the system.
David Brooks
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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?
David Brooks
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Donald Trump's being authentic to what he ran on and what got elected.
David Brooks
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People want reality that tells them how right they are all the time.
David Brooks
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People generally overestimate how distinct their lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them like a series of miracles.
David Brooks
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One of the things this world is finding is that emotion is the basis of reason. We really have to trust our emotions, which are much smarter than our reason in some ways.
David Brooks
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I'm of course nostalgic for Barack Obama all of a sudden.
David Brooks
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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.
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Basically, less educated or high school-educated whites are going to Donald Trump. It doesn't matter what the guy does. And college-educated going to Hillary Clinton.
David Brooks
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We pretend to be a middle class, democratic nation, but in reality we love our blue bloods. ... We love the prep school manners, the aristocratic calm, the Skull and Bones mystery, the dappled lawns stretching before New England summer homes. How else can be explained the Bush vs. Kerry match-up that confronts us this year?
David Brooks
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There are no free and democratic and wealthy countries in the world that have US rate of gun violence. We have to worry about loners and alienated people. We have to do better on mental health.
David Brooks
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Woe to you who insults the intelligence community, if you're president.
David Brooks
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The moral foundation of the society, the way we interact with each other is more fundamental than the Supreme Court.
David Brooks
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The teachers union may not like Betsy DeVos, but she's clearly within the range of Republican policy-makers.
David Brooks
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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
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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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Tim Kaine has been obviously a governor. He's been a senator. He's one of the smartest rising stars in the Democratic Party. He is very plausible as someone who could sit in and be president.
David Brooks
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Everyone is dividing based on demographic categories.
David Brooks