David Brooks Thinking Quotations

I think we are all disgusted by the way George W. Bush's administration has allowed honesty and candor to seep into the genteel world of international affairs.

I've come to think that flourishing consists of putting yourself in situations in which you lose self-consciousness and become fused with other people, experiences, or tasks.

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.

[Mitch Daniels] was not a bad governor. He could be playful, but - or communicator.I'm just saying it will - I think will be - every candidate comes into the White House, assuming if [Hillary Clinton] wins, or if she does win, with strengths and weaknesses. This will be a weakness, because this was such an easy moment to show some heart.

I think Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana was a case of that, who was an outstanding administrator.

I'm beginning to think [Ted] Cruz had a good convention, that if [Donald] Trump goes down, Cruz is pretty well positioned to be the Republican major figure in four, six or even within two years.

I do think economic and social anxiety is the number one issue. And I'm pretty confident Hillary Clinton will be really riding that train pretty hard.

It's just a lot safer to be an incumbent. So I think they have used the campaign finance reforms. They have passed laws that will help themselves stay in office. And I think that's one of the flaws that we do have in the system.

Some people think humility is thinking lowly of yourself. Some people think it's not thinking about yourself. But, to me, the best definition of humility is radical self-awareness from a distance, seeing themselves from a distance and saying, what's my problem?

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.

It's impossible for one person to think of everything.

I do think trying to live each day as a bunch of moral occasions, did I live up to what I would hope, and, if I didn't, what can I do tomorrow to be a little better, I do think we can improve. We get better at life as we get older.

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.

I do think British and American politics rhyme. They go in cycles. They go in Thatcher-Reagan cycles, Blair-Clinton cycles.

I think that it's an arguable position, whether with Hamas and ISIS around, whether there should be a Palestinian state, but it's a defensible position, given the current circumstances.

I don't think history will ever be a science because history will never be reduced to law-like behavior. People are to unpredictable.

We live in a culture of a big me. We're encouraged - we raise our kids to think how great they are, where we have to market ourselves to get through life. We're in social media, where we broadcast highlight - highlight reels of our own lives on Facebook.

I don't think the Palestinians are in this position they're in, divided with Hamas and the P.A., unwilling to allow - or recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

When you're running for president, you're a guest in the living room for four years. And if people don't think you're going to be around the living room as a pleasant experience, they're not going to vote for you even if they agree with you.

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.

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.

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around.

Of those two [Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump], I do think that the - right now, at least in my mind, the Democratic theme is eclipsing the Republican one.

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.

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.

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.'

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

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.