David Brooks
If I had to fault President [Barack] Obama, I would say that sometimes governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.Collection: Civilization
Things that change history tend to be organized.Collection: Organized
The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, 'The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.'Collection: Technology
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.Collection: Brain
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.Collection: President
The politics is broken up and down. And Trump may emerge from a reality TV world that is much more powerful than we think. And there is the prospect that this is where we are, which is an horrific thought.Collection: Powerful
Learning was a by-product of her search for pleasureCollection: Pleasure
You have got to be loyal to people beneath you.Collection: People
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.Collection: Thinking
The effectiveness of a group of people is not determined by their IQ but by how well they communicate.Collection: Effectiveness
We still are America though. We're still a country that is a country of social mobility. We're still a country of immigrants. We're still a country with common ancestors. And reviving the civics of America and the idea that we're going to be united, at least not right now, but in some common future, and talking in that hopeful way that Martin Luther King did, that Abraham Lincoln did, seems to me that's the way.Collection: Country
Freedom without structure is its own slavery.Collection: Slavery
It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.Collection: Memories
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 itCollection: Country
[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.Collection: Teacher
Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being.Collection: Marriage
I think the voters who voted for Donald Trump certainly are willing to tolerate a lot of ugliness, but maybe, if you're in desperate circumstances, or you think America is deeply in trouble, you're willing to tolerate that without necessarily liking it.Collection: Thinking
Donald Trump is so egregious in the way he talks about women, the way he allegedly treated women.Collection: Way
The teachers union may not like Betsy DeVos, but she's clearly within the range of Republican policy-makers.Collection: Teacher
If there is a series of attacks like that or, God forbid, if ISIS is really sending soldiers across Europe and maybe across the world for a barrage of these things, then the political climate is revolutionized here. And maybe the [Donald] Trump speech will look like a precursor to a climate that we're all about to walk into.Collection: Isis
Your DVD collection is organized, and so is your walk-in closet. Your car is clean and vacuumed, your frequently dialed numbers are programmed into your cordless phone, your telephone plan is suited to your needs, and your various gizmos interact without conflict. Your spouse is athletic, your kids are bright, your job is rewarding, your promotions are inevitable, everywhere you need to be comes with its own accessible parking. You look great in casual slacks.Collection: Jobs
There is a virtue in shamelessness.Collection: Virtue
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.Collection: Wisdom
The more people doubt their own beliefs the more, paradoxically, they are inclined to proselytize in favor of them.Collection: People
We have rapidly increasing technology, which is making life very good for people who are good at using words, and not so good for people who are not good at using words.Collection: Technology
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.Collection: School
People generally overestimate how distinct their lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them like a series of miracles.Collection: People
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.Collection: Records
... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion.Collection: Rivers
If you're running a successful administration, then you're loyal to people who are basically good who make a mistake. And that seems to be essential for any organization. And it should be essential if this were a normal administration, rather than a fiefdom, where everybody simply tries to give Donald Trump a good headline every day.Collection: Running
Stairway to Wisdom”) David Brooks detailed the needed ingredients to gaining a deep understanding of a social problem, beginning with the data and moving on to first-hand accounts. The highest rung on his stairway, though, went beyond those: “Empathy opens you up to absorb the good and the bad. Love impels you not just to observe but to seek union—to think as another thinks and feel as another feels.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: School
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 .Collection: Player
Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.Collection: Gps
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?Collection: Thinking
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?Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Philosophy
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.Collection: Military
It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a heroCollection: Wall
Two terrible behaviors don't make a good behavior.Collection: Two
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.Collection: Nice
I think the Republican budget priorities are messed up. I salute for the way they're attacking some of the entitlement programs, but they are taking huge cuts, by pretending they're just block-granting it to the states, out of Medicaid, from the least fortunate.Collection: Block
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.Collection: Party
On the [Andrew] Puzder point, I do agree there has been a double standard.Collection: Double Standard
I think the Barack Obama position and the majority position of American Jews and a lot of Americans is a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. Settlements get in the way of that. If they're not stopped soon, there is no prospect for that type of solution.Collection: Thinking
People have been raised in a morality that says, "If it feels all right for you, it's probably OK."Collection: Feels
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.Collection: Inspirational
If you just rely on one model, you tend to amputate reality to make it fit your model.Collection: Reality
Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation.Collection: People