Best 376 quotes of David Brooks on MyQuotes

A heroic moral victory for the New York Mets. It may be the only kind of victory we're achieving this season, but he set a good example for professional athletes and the rest of us.

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.

A lot of people think Barack Obama should have responded to the Russian hacking of the U.S. elections weeks ago, months ago. So these happened on his watch. There's nothing wrong with him dealing with it.

America has an important role to play as the world leader in creating a global order, free trade, free waterways, free commerce, free movement of people. That happens because of U.S. military might.

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.

As a director, I like trying to unlock the subtext of the scene and try to put the camera in a place that helps that.

As for multimillionaires [in Donald Trump's Administration], a lot of us hope to be a multimillionaire some day. Again, spotty records, but it seems to be not without the range.

A wise soul once declared that the ultimate power of the writer is that he has the choice of whom he wants to be co-opted by.

Barack Obama won such a big electoral mandate because a lot of people thought he was - transcended partisan and ideological barriers and was going to put aside the old debates. So, he was able to get a lot of moderates and a lot of independents.

Basically, global capitalism, basically to support it, or is it to be opposed? Is international order to be supported, or is it to be opposed? Republicans have taken a very clear line. Democrats can have a different version of the line, or they can just say, no, we are the party of international peace and activism, and we're the party that's going to have a civilized capitalism.

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.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a fascinating figure.We say Nixonian about a lot of people. He really is Nixonian. He's brilliant. He's very isolated and insular.

[Betsy DeVos] does care about charter schools, which are public schools. She does care about choice, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to care about. It's because it's the one issue where the Democratic donor base was really energized, which was the teacher unions.

Betsy DeVos is not the most informed person on education policy, but I have seen her present a few times, and she presents as a pretty respectable, intelligent person who has cared passionately about education and cares about charter schools.

[Betsy DeVos] is quite a smart person, capable, pretty sophisticated in subtle thought. And so to me, that puts her in the realm of policy. But we're in a climate where, as today, she tries to visit a school, and she can't even do that because protesters are blocking that.

Bibi Netanyahu, froze the settlements and offered to go toward a two-state solution. The Palestinians didn't take him up on it. Historically, we have had a series of these offers. And the settlements themselves are not the keystone here. It seems to me myopic and bizarre that at the last moment, the Barack Obama administration would surrender the whole balanced array of policies that are obstacles to peace and focus on the one that is most detrimental to Israel.

Big Brother is not the only danger facing the country. Another is the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric and the rise of people who are so individualistic in their outlook that they have no real understanding of how to knit others together and look after the common good.

Bill Clinton pandered by telling you what you wanted to hear. John Kerry panders by never telling you what you don't want to hear. This is negative pandering; he talks a lot without really ruling anything out so you can draw your own conclusions.....Kerry has been talking for years, and yet such is the thicket of his verbiage that he has achieved almost complete strategic ambiguity.

Bragging about what a good deal you got is one of the many great art forms that my people, the Jews, have introduced to American culture.

Britain is blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

Certainly, the country can't have two presidents at once, so the tradition has been to hang back if you're the president-elect and wait for your time in office. [Donald] Trump is not a hang-back kind of guy.

Charter schools are public schools. They're paid for publicly and they're part of the public system. They just have a more independent structure.

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

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

Decision-making power, whether it's on foreign affairs or domestic affairs, is concentrated in the White House in a reasonably small circle.

Democrats in environmental agencies tend to be more sensitive to environmental harm. And Republicans tend to be more sensitive to business harm.

Donald Trump appalls me. I won't be shy about that.

Donald Trump didn't emerge from the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. And so there's going to be bigger differences than normal.

Donald Trump has a pre-modern monarchic family structure. His business is a monarchy with family members all around. His administration is a monarchy with family members all around.

[Donald Trump] has shifted - President [Barack] Obama has shifted American policy in a much more critical way in Israel with the settlements than the previous presidents.

Donald Trump is sitting on the control deck of the starship Enterprise, and he can push a lot of pretty buttons, but those buttons aren't connected to anything. And so nothing is happening.

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

Donald Trump is sort of an Orwellian figure, an authoritarian figure who is twisting words in an Orwellian manner, "1984," to exercise power and control people's minds, or is he a 5-year-old who has an ego that needs to be fed, and the universe has to warp around his ego needs so he can feel good about himself, and everybody has to produce photos to make the monarch feel like he's made of gold.

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.

Donald Trump just needs the ego fed all the time.

Donald Trump's ego is like a comet the size of Jupiter just traveling through the solar system, and we all have to be affected by its gravitational pull.

Donald Trump's got to do some big changes, because what he was voted on. But when you think about how to do it, it would take massive expertise, which his people, believe me, do not have.

Donald Trump's world view is that it's a dangerous, miserable place, people are out to get him, and he needs to strike them first.

Donald Trump tried to set up this debate where it was going to be globalists vs. nationalists, and the Republicans were going to be the nationalists. But, if anything, the Democrats looked more patriotic and more nationalist at the end of these two.

Donald Trump understands sense of belonging. And a lot of people think globalization, any time you make any particularity, you're sort of offending some other group. And a lot of people in this country think they belong to America anymore, and he at least appeals to some sense of belonging. I like the idea that we belong to Western traditions, so I'm glad he appeals to that sort of thing.

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.

[Donald Trump] will be the one on offense. He will be the one serving volleys, and it may be some weird stuff about the Russians, but he will be controlling things a little more than he probably did over the last two weeks.

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.

Emotion is the foundation of reason.

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.

Even in this nuclear thing, [ Donald Trump] says we should be stronger and expand. What does that mean? So, what is concrete in what he's saying?

Every time Kellyanne Conway goes on TV, there's another fight with whoever's interviewing her that particular day.

Every White House I have covered since Reagan, when I got here, power has been more concentrated in the White House than the one before.

Freedom without structure is its own slavery.

For the Democrats, they're trying to avoid having the Sanders-Clinton debate over and over again. But, to some degree, they're sentenced to that debate. Clinton is much more embracing of the global economy and the international world order. Sanders and Warren are much less so. And they have got to figure out which side the party is on, if they're going to have a clear message. I think this is probably one you probably can't straddle.