David Brooks Quotations | Page 3

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.

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

How can we expect young people to be rooted in things such as character, morality and honesty? How is one supposed to be at once an arrow soaring skyward and an oak planted firmly in the ground? The meritocratic culture hones strivers on every aspect of their lives save one - how to cultivate character.

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.

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.

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.'

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.

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

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.

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.