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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
Thinking
Point
Bigs
Encourages
Culture
Smaller
Littles
Goodness
Live
Inner
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Starting
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More quotes by David Brooks

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Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.
David Brooks
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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.
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I would like to see an animating passion. Tim Kaine actually had a good line. What animated you before you got into politics? And she actually does have a story there to tell about children. And so drawing that animating passion will do good.
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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.
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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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It's rare in an administration for a secretary of state and a secretary of defense to get along really well.
David Brooks
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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.
David Brooks
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Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters they could just rely on the courts to impose their views.
David Brooks
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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
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If Donald Trump is just tweeting about a union guy, then he's just being the bully we have seen. But if he uses the power of the presidency to back up some of those tweets and he's really, really coming down with a hammer on people he doesn't like using the power of the presidency, then we're seeing something very new and very different.
David Brooks
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People want a reality that tells them they're right all of the time.
David Brooks
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Donald Trump just needs the ego fed all the time.
David Brooks
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The effectiveness of a group of people is not determined by their IQ but by how well they communicate.
David Brooks
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I sort of feel we have to owe some respect to the process and owe some respect to the electorate and the people who voted Donald Trump, on the assumption that they have something to teach us.
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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To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.
David Brooks
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The madman theory is that you can be a successful deterrer if you - if they think you could be crazy. And so I think it can be very effective, so long as you're not actually crazy.
David Brooks
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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
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I don't think history will ever be a science because history will never be reduced to law-like behavior. People are to unpredictable.
David Brooks
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The more attention Hillary Clinton gives to the country, the less people seem to like her.
David Brooks