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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

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David Brooks
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 22
Editor
Journalist
Politician
Pundit
City of Toronto
Persons
Takes
Artificial
Disorganization
Person
Results
Habits
Dissolved
Country
Moral
Accomplishment
Coercion
Hard
Suffering
Result
Restore
Whether
Flow
Measures
Family
Physical
Accumulation
Social
Habit
Flows
Order
Poverty
Stable

More quotes by David Brooks

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The Republican Party has become an ethnic nationalist party.
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.
David Brooks
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I think Donald Trump is going to find it very hard to do the kind of massive change he wants.
David Brooks
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I really think of [Donald] Trump erratic. I think that was the big message that came out. The positive agenda for Hillary [Clinton] was a little less vibrant.
David Brooks
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The drugs are just growing all around the country, and so, it all feeds into problems that are not just urban, but are just spread throughout the country.
David Brooks
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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.
David Brooks
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If we're in some sort of Hobbesian state of nature, where you just want a strong man who has no compassion Donald Trump is going to do a little better. So, we will figure out what game we're playing.
David Brooks
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The idea that a big country is going to go out and send troops into some country to take their resources, and then the rest of the world is going to somehow trust us is just a ridiculous notion.
David Brooks
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One of the things I think about with Donald Trump is what are his words actually attached to? With Trump, I'm not sure the words have roots. They are emanations of his psyche, but has he thought it through? Is there an argument, is there a policy implication?
David Brooks
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The policies of the Democratic Party have always been in cultural consonance with the culture of the working class. And, somehow, they missed that.
David Brooks
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... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion.
David Brooks
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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
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I am not a Jew for Jesus but I am definitely a Jew for Christmas. Christmas is one of the best things you Christians have given us, along with mac and cheese, Bono, croquet and politeness.
David Brooks
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I'm of course nostalgic for Barack Obama all of a sudden.
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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No matter where you are on politics, I think it is wonderful to see candidates funding campaigns not by talking to a very small number of very rich people, but by reaching out to a very large number of citizens.
David Brooks
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I want to try to make big films that hopefully connect with people.
David Brooks
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Russia has a very sophisticated, advanced attack on U.S. businesses and U.S. government and U.S. institutions. And it's not like Donald Trump is going to be walking away from this. He will be spending a lot of time on it, if he's any sort of normal president.
David Brooks
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I'm not the most emotionally attuned guy in the world. My wife says that me writing about emotion is like Gandhi writing about gluttony.
David Brooks
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People who give money in large amount in politics are basically not altruistic. They have some issue. They have some interest. It may be world peace. It may be preserving carried interest. But it's not altruistic.
David Brooks