David Brooks Quotes

Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.

Much of life is about failure, whether we acknowledge it or not, and your destiny is profoundly shaped by how effectively you learn from and adapt to failure.

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.

The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind.

Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation.

It’s only useful to ask, what wisdom have you learned from your misjudgments that will help you going forward?

It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.

Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.

Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.

The daily activity that contributes most to happiness is having dinner with friends. The daily activity that detracts most from happiness is commuting. Eat more. Commute less.

Populists hate journalists, they hate teachers, they hate lawyers, but they tend to like rich people. There's something deeply consistent.

To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.

Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being.

America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams.

Things that change history tend to be organized.

Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive.

Creativity is not a solitary process. It happens within networks... when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge.

... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion.

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.

Empathy makes you more aware of other people's suffering, but it's not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action.

Jim Stavridis is the former NATO commander who is sometimes on people's lists, also very plausible, self-possessed, someone with sobriety.

You have to have a plan, or else you're just creating a recipe for chaos.

The policies of the Democratic Party have always been in cultural consonance with the culture of the working class. And, somehow, they missed that.

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.

We are primarily the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness.

Donald Trump just needs the ego fed all the time.

The effectiveness of a group of people is not determined by their IQ but by how well they communicate.

Memo to young journalists: Democratic victories are always ascribed to hope; Republican ones to rage.

The crossroads where government meets enterprise can be an exciting crossroads. It can also be a corrupt crossroads. It requires moral rectitude to separate public service from private gain.

Donald Trump is so egregious in the way he talks about women, the way he allegedly treated women.

Learning was a by-product of her search for pleasure

Freedom without structure is its own slavery.

I wouldn't say philosophy and theology are dead. Brain science doesn't invent new philosophies but it helps remind us which of our existing philosophies are more true.

People want reality that tells them how right they are all the time.

You have got to be loyal to people beneath you.

I expect [Donald] Trump to do what he's done very successfully, which is, whether you like him or not, he will be the dominant player .

There is a virtue in shamelessness.

The prevailing view is that geniuses are largely built, not born.

Live life as a series of revelations

Courage is the most important virtue because it is the hardest.

Plunder is morally wrong. It ruins your credibility.

The rich don't exploit the poor, they just out-compete them.

We are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other.

The legitimacy of a war is not established by how it is organized but by what it achieves.

People want a reality that tells them they're right all of the time.

It's hard to imagine a party that is not corrupted by hatred.

People generally overestimate how distinct their lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them like a series of miracles.

Obamacare is woven into the fabric of health care. It's very hard to just rip it out, as Donald Trump sort of acknowledged with The Wall Street Journal.

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.

People tend to marry people with similar-width noses, eyes similarly apart, with complementary immune systems.