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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
Littles
Goodness
Live
Inner
Little
Starting
Trying
Build
Think
Bits
Thinking
Point
Bigs
Encourages
Culture
Smaller

More quotes by David Brooks

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It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.
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Some people think humility is thinking lowly of yourself. Some people think it's not thinking about yourself. But, to me, the best definition of humility is radical self-awareness from a distance, seeing themselves from a distance and saying, what's my problem?
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I can't imagine that being in the Trump Cabinet will be a very important job. I do think this will be a White House-run administration with a teeny-tiny group of people surrounding him, including his family maybe.
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What's interesting about the Trump administration is how bitterly divided they are in their attitudes towards Putin.
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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.
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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
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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.
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I think the Democrats are right to protest, but I don't think Jeff Sessions is so far out of the range of normalcy that he shouldn't be confirmed.
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When a president speaks that usually means a lot.
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Donald Trump is this whirling dervish of chaos. He picked a fight with Mexico. Germany is not far behind. He will pick a fight with them. He will pick a fight with China, which would be truly cataclysmic.
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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.
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We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.
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People have been raised in a morality that says, If it feels all right for you, it's probably OK.
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I think there are two basic approaches you can use for campaign finance. One is complete openness, everybody knows absolutely everything, but no limits. But you let people decide.The other is just have a national public system.
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If you grow up in a home where actions don't lead to predictable consequences, you don't develop strategies to control your impulses.
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Everyone is dividing based on demographic categories.
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I've argued that Trump's biggest success in his first 100 days was to keep the Russia story at bay, toss out whatever it takes to push the story back, including those false charges that Obama had his wires tapped.
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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.
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It's rare in an administration for a secretary of state and a secretary of defense to get along really well.
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Two terrible behaviors don't make a good behavior.
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