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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.
-David Brooks
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Every White House I

David Brooks
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "every white house i have covered since reagan, when i got here,..."

This quote by David Brooks reflects deeply on the theme of white. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under White, House, Covered, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how David Brooks interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About David Brooks

David Brooks is celebrated for insightful thoughts on white and house. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Able
Debate
The Republicans In Congress, They Believe In Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, Not Donald Trump Republican Party Or Steve Bannon's Republican Party.
Party
Believe
Republican
I've Observed A Few Things About The Few Really Great People I've Had A Chance To Meet And Cover...they Need To Be Around People. You And I Require Sleep. They Require People.
Sleep
People
Funny Graduation
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 Hero
Wall
Hero
Community
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.
Thinking
Two
Years
On The [andrew] Puzder Point, I Do Agree There Has Been A Double Standard.
Double Standard
Andrew
Standards
We Are All Fundamentally Equal Souls, And If You Make A Zillion Dollars, You're Not Any Better Than Anybody Else Spiritually. You're Still An Equal Soul.
Soul
Dollars
Equal
Everyone Is Dividing Based On Demographic Categories.
Dividing
Demographics
Categories
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.
Destiny
Life Is
Acknowledge
We're No Longer Living In Tammany Hall America.
America
Halls
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.
School
College
Guy
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.
Thinking
Optimism
Leader
I Learned I'm Not A Science Writer. I'm Not Very Good At Describing How Something Is Happening. I Try To Describe "so What?"
Trying
Very Good
Describing
In My View, Success Is Earned Externally By Being Better Than Other People. But Character, That Sort Of Unfakeable Goodness, Is Earned By Being Better Than You Used To Be. And It's About Self-confrontation.
Character
Self
Views
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.
Running
Mistake
Successful
[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.
Heart
Winning
Thinking
Learning Was A By-product Of Her Search For Pleasure
Pleasure
Products
Some Children Lack Tools To See Their Course In The World In Far-sighted Ways. Just Introducing School Vouchers Won't Change That. You Have To Have Nurse-home Partnerships, Early Childhood Education, Mentoring Programs And So On. People Learn From People They Love.
Children
Home
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 .
Player
Done
Trump
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.
Thinking
Self
People
What's Sort Of Remarkable Is That, Especially In The Israel And The Russia Cases, You Have Got A U.s. Citizen, Donald Trump, Siding With A Foreign Leader Against The U.s. President. There Is A Reason Why President-elects Have Tried To Remain Mute During Their Transitional Periods, Relatively, Because You Just Don't Want To Be For Somebody - Some Other Country Against Your Own Government, And Especially When You're About To Take The Helm Of That Government.
Country
Leader
President
I Wasn't Born With A Tie Or With Mark Shields Stapled To My Left Hip. I Have Another Life.
Ties
Shields
Hips
Maybe You're Willing To Tolerate A Lot Of Bigotry From Donald Trump If You Say, Just Change Things, Just Change Things.
Trump
Tolerate
Willing
Students Are Too Busy Jumping Through The Next Hurdle In The Résumé Race To Figure Out What They Really Want. They Are Too Frantic Tasting Everything On The Smorgasbord To Have Life-altering Encounters. They Have A Terror Of Closing Off Options. They Have Been Inculcated With A Lust For Prestige And A Fear Of Doing Things That May Put Their Status At Risk.
Jumping
Race
Lust
The Message Of The Summoned Life Is That You Don't Need To Panic If You Don't Yet Know What You Want To Do With Your Life. But You Probably Want To Throw Yourselves Into Circumstances Where The Summons Will Come.
Inspirational
Graduation
Messages
Donald Trump Appalls Me. I Won't Be Shy About That.
Shy
Trump
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.
Party
Taken
Order
I'm Not A Kicker And A Screamer.
Kickers
I'm Not Sure [donald] Trump Has Had That Distinction Between Private And Public Life In His Head. And So, I Think There's Likely To Be An Erosion Of Just That Standard, That Different Standard, Consciousness, And I Think It's Likely We'll See What We Haven't Seen In The Last Eight Years And Even The Last 12 Or 16 Of Private Enrichment In Office And Scandals Where People Have To Resign And Things Like That, Because Just Once The Standards Go, Behavior Tends To Go.
Thinking
Eight
Erosion
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.
Country
Gun
People
If You Grow Up In A Home Where Actions Don't Lead To Predictable Consequences, You Don't Develop Strategies To Control Your Impulses.
Growing Up
Home
Action
You Have Got To Have Two Things In Education Reform. You Have Got To Have Some Flexibility, So People Can Figure Out What To Do. But You Also Have To Have Accountable, Basically What The Common Core Standards Were, Some Sort Of Set Of National Standards, So We Can Measure.
Two
People
Reform
I Would Have Swapped Out Donald Trump's Frontal Cortex For Somebody Else's For A Little More Self-control.
Self
Self Control
Littles
Most People Don't Form A Self And Then Lead A Life. They Are Called By A Problem, And The Self Is Constructed Gradually By Their Calling.
Self
People
Calling
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.
Records
Administration
Range
Politics Is Based On Social Identity, And So, Again, There Is Going To Be Differences Between Rural And Urban And Between Left And Right.
Differences
Identity
Urban
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.
Honesty
Character
Arrows
The Madman Theory Is That You Can Be A Successful Deterrer If You - If They Think You Could Be Crazy. And So I Think It Can Be Very Effective, So Long As You're Not Actually Crazy.
Crazy
Successful
Thinking
I Can't Imagine That Being In The Trump Cabinet Will Be A Very Important Job. I Do Think This Will Be A White House-run Administration With A Teeny-tiny Group Of People Surrounding Him, Including His Family Maybe.
Thinking
People
Important
Institutions Do All The Things That Are Supposed To Be Bad. They Impede Personal Exploration. They Enforce Conformity. But They Often Save Us From Our Weaknesses And Give Meaning To Life.
Giving
Weakness
Conformity
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.
Thinking
Trying
Culture
If You Just Rely On One Model, You Tend To Amputate Reality To Make It Fit Your Model.
Reality
Fit
Models
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.
Art
People
Culture
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.
School
Independent
Structure
Russian Hackers Interfered In Our Elections, And We Like Penalized A Few Of Them. Whatever They're Doing Underground, We Don't Know. No, This Is Going To Be A Big Issue. And I Have To Say The Barack Obama - The Donald Trump Position Is, A, Mystifying, But, B, Doomed. He Has A Nice Little Vladimir Putin Romance Going On Right Now. I Think We're Going To Get Out The Hankies, Because This Is Going To Turn Into An Ugly Relationship Within A Year Or Two.
Nice
Thinking
Romance
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.
Self
Law
People
We Pretend To Be A Middle Class, Democratic Nation, But In Reality We Love Our Blue Bloods. ... We Love The Prep School Manners, The Aristocratic Calm, The Skull And Bones Mystery, The Dappled Lawns Stretching Before New England Summer Homes. How Else Can Be Explained The Bush Vs. Kerry Match-up That Confronts Us This Year?
Summer
Home
School
I Have Seen [betsy Devos] Present A Few Times. I Don't Really Know Her. But I Have Seen Her Present On Education Policy, And She's Not A Stupid Person.
Stupid
Policy
Persons
Research By Donald A. Redelmeier And Sheldon M. Singh Has Found That, On Average, Oscar Winners Live Nearly Four Years Longer Than Nominees That Don't Win.
Winning
Average
Years
If You Thought Donald Trump Was Going To Be Swallowed Up By The Conventional Republican Party Or By Washington, You Were Wrong.
Party
Republican
Trump
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.
Thinking
Israel
States
Parties That Are Majority Parties Are Incoherent Parties.
Party
Majority
Mitt Romney Knows A Lot. He's A Very Professional - A Consummate Professional.
Knows
Romney
I Do Not Believe That Anything Like What Donald Trump Just Proposed Is Going To Get Through Congress. Those Deductions Have A Lot Of Defenders. The Idea That They're Going To Completely Explode The Deficit Is Just A Party Killer For The Republican Parties.
Party
Believe
Republican
There Is A Virtue In Shamelessness.
Virtue
Donald Trump Just Needs The Ego Fed All The Time.
Ego
Needs
Trump
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.
Ego
Jupiter
Size
The North Korean Regime Is Extremely Fiery, Extremely Insecure, Sometimes Hysterical. And When You're Around Somebody Who's Screaming And Unstable, The Last Thing You Want To Do Is Add To The Instability With Your Own Unstable, Hysterical Rhetoric.
Insecure
Korean
Sometimes
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.
Christian
Jesus
Cheese
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.
Wise
Writing
Choices
Hillary Clinton Is Still - She's Such A Private Person.
Clinton
Persons
Stills
Our System Is Not Only Based On Rules, But A Series Of Self-restraints That We Won't Be As Barbaric As We Could Be In Competing For Power Because We Know If We're All Barbaric As We Could Be, The Whole Country And The Whole Society Falls Apart.
Country
Fall
Self
You Have Got To Be Loyal To People Beneath You.
People
Loyal
We Don't Have The Choice To Control Our Emotions, But We Do Have The Power To Educate Our Emotions. And We Do That Through Literature And Through Art And Music To Give Ourselves A Repertoire Of Emotional Experiences.
Art
Emotional
Giving
There Has Never Been Evidence That People From These [banned] Countries Are Disproportionately Likely To Commit Terrorist Acts. We Have Sent Chaos To The Airports. We Have Offended The World. We Have Derailed The Administration. We Have Done It In Such An Incompetent Way, The Administration Has, That People With Perfectly Legal Residence Have Been Widely Inconvenienced.
Country
Airports
People
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.
Thinking
Law
Office
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