Background Image

...

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.'

-David Brooks

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Roots Of Great

David Brooks

...

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.'

Views: 7

Topic

More From David Brooks

It's Hard To Imagine A Party That Is Not Corrupted By Hatred.

Plunder Is Morally Wrong. It Ruins Your Credibility.

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.

With The Case Of [mike] Pence, Giving A Little Aurora Of Likability To A Candidate, A Lead Candidate Who's A Little Lacking In That Department.

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.

Pain Now Is Better Than Pain Deferred.

On The [betsy] Devos Case, I Agree That The Gun - Her Gun Position Is Kind Of Weird, Kind Of Crazy, But I Do Think She Does Know About Public Schools.

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.

Trump Has Picked The More Extreme Versions Of All Republicans So Far, The More Aggressive. And I Think The Thing To Watch Out For Is, I Could Totally Paint A Scenario Where Trump Runs An Authoritarian Regime. I Can Totally Paint A Scenario Where He Has No Control Over His Own Government.

I Think The Twenty-first Century Happened, Basically. That This Century Started On 9/11. And Basically, It's Been A Century Of Counter Reaction To Globalization And The Meritocracy. And A Good Century For 72 Nations Have Gotten More Authoritarian. We've Had Brexit. We Have Le Pen Rising In France. We've Just Got A Lot Of These Types All Around The World. And The People Who Are Suffering From Globalization And The Meritocracy Are Saying, "no More. You Know, We Get A Voice Too."

Fundamentalism Is Still On The March.

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.

Nonetheless, So Whether It's Unconstitutional Or Not [for Judges To Overruling Presidents], I Leave To Others.

Unconstitutional

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.

The School Asks A Person Who Has Achieved A Certain Level Of Career Success To Give You A Speech Telling You That Career Success Is Not Important.

I Want To Limit The Effects Of The Power Of Donors, No Question About It.

Everyone Is Dividing Based On Demographic Categories.

Most Poor People In America Are White. The Family Breakdown Issue Is An Issue That Crosses All Sorts Of Racial Lines. High School Dropout Issues. But Because Of The Flow Of Events Which Involve The Racial Component, We've Sometimes Confused Racial Issues With Other Issues Which Are Trans-racial.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Have To Have A Plan, Or Else You're Just Creating A Recipe For Chaos.

Putin's An Egomaniac, So There Are Two Ways He Can Process His Ego Mania. He Can Say, "oh, I Stood Up To The U.s.," Or, "hey, I'm Essential To The World Order."

Emotion Is The Foundation Of Reason.

This Is How Life Works. Deciding Whom To Love Is Not An Alien Form Of Decision-making , A Romantic Interlude In The Midst Of Normal Life. Instead, Decisions About Whom To Love Are More Intense Versions Of The Sorts Of Decisions We Make Throughout The Course Of Our Existence, From What Kind Of Gelato To Order To What Career To Pursue. Living Is An Inherently Emotional Business.

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.

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.

Freedom Without Structure Is Its Own Slavery.

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.

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.

For Those Of Us Who Believe In It, There Has To Be A Movement That Says, "we Still Believe In Trade. We Still Believe In International Engagement For America. But For Those Losers Or Those Who Are Suffering, We've Got Your Back."

Live Life As A Series Of Revelations

I Want To Make Big Films. That's Always Been My Ambition.

I've Argued That Trump's Biggest Success In His First 100 Days Was To Keep The Russia Story At Bay, Toss Out Whatever It Takes To Push The Story Back, Including Those False Charges That Obama Had His Wires Tapped.

Whatever It Takes

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.

The Republicans In Congress, They Believe In Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, Not Donald Trump Republican Party Or Steve Bannon's Republican Party.

Parties That Are Majority Parties Are Incoherent Parties.

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.

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.

Palin Is Smart, Politically Skilled, Courageous And Likable. Her Convention And Debate Performances Were Impressive.

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.

I Think Actually In Any Party It's A Sign Of General Health To Have Different Views, And Especially On The Subject Of Trade.

There Certainly Is A Pattern Of Administrations That Have Good Transitions, George W. Bush To Barack Obama, And Administrations That Have Really Bad Transitions, I Would Say Dwight Eisenhower To John F. Kennedy. I Would Say This Is Beginning To Look Like A Bad Transition, From Barack Obama To Donald Trump As They Begin To Argue Even At The Presidential Level, Which Is More Or Less Unprecedented.

We Have The Choice To Choose How We're Going To Educate Our Emotions.

I Think Romney's Foreign Policy Is Sensible.

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.

The People Who Really Have Character Make Deep, Unshakable Connections To Something Outside Themselves.

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.'

Republicans Are Living In A Hermetically Sealed Republican Universe, Just As Democrats Are. And So They're Responding To Their Own Universe, Even If It Leads To Electoral Downfall.

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.

We Have An International System. We All Profit From It. Trade Profits From It. Peace. We Can Travel Around The World Because Of It. And Part Of That System Is Certain Ideas, The Certain Ideas You Can't Invade Other Countries For No Reason. You Can't Commit Genocide. You Can't - Rogue Regimes Can't Have Nuclear Weapons, And You Can't Gas Your Own People.

I, Personally, Think Trump Improved Pretty Dramatically And Certainly Changed Pretty Dramatically Over The Last Hundred Days. He's Less Of The Populist. He's More Of The Corporatist. He's Less Incompetent. He's Trying To At Least Turn Toward People Who Can Put A Decision-making Process. And He's Trying To Adjust To The Job. And So Whatever One Thinks Of Him, He Is Certainly A Learning Creature.

One Of The Frustrations About The Modern World Is That We Don't Even Have A Good Vocabulary To Describe Our State. The Word Sentiment Sounds Mushy. [...] Sentiment Is Not Mushy.

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.

The More People Doubt Their Own Beliefs The More, Paradoxically, They Are Inclined To Proselytize In Favor Of Them.

I Think, From A Progressive Point Of View, To Have A Democratic Congress And A Democratic White House, And To Have Spent The Time On Obamacare, Which Had Real Benefits, 20 Million Insured, But Not On Inequality, Was A Major Cost To The Democratic Party, Costing Them Their Majorities, But Also A Bit Of A Cost To The Country, Because It Didn't Address The Fundamental Issues That Led To Donald Trump And That Led To A Lot Of Unhappiness, Just The Continued Widening Inequality.

We Are A Democratic, Egalitarian People Who Spend Our Days Desperately Trying To Climb Over Each Other.

What's Interesting About The Trump Administration Is How Bitterly Divided They Are In Their Attitudes Towards Putin.

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.

I Think As We Interpret Him And Frankly As The World Learns To Interpret Donald Trump, Are These Just Words That Are Enigmatic Things Floating On Air Or Are They Actually Shifts In Policy And Will They Change Moment By Moment, Day By Day Without Any Underlying Connection To The Actual Stuff Of Governance? I Don't Know.

Democrats In Environmental Agencies Tend To Be More Sensitive To Environmental Harm. And Republicans Tend To Be More Sensitive To Business Harm.

I Generally Think The President [donald Trump] Should Get His Cabinet Picks, Unless They're Egregiously Out Of The Range, Either Ethically Or Intellectually Out Of The Range Of What's Acceptable.

[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.

Those Cultural Wars, Sexual Revolution Issues Are Fading From The Scene, And The Coming Generation Has Basically Settled Them.

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.

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.

The Things That Make Them Similar - Their Machismo, Their Expansionary Braggadocio - Is Going To Turn Them I Think Into Bitter And Dangerous Enemies. We Will Look Back On This Moment Where We Thought Vladimir Putin And Donald Trump Were Sort Of Close As A Moment Of Bitter Irony, When They Get Into A Schoolyard Display Against Each Other, Amping Up Each Other's Worst Tendencies And Putting The Two Countries In Some Sort Of Scary Position.

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.

Funny Graduation

Putin Is Someone Who Has Been Undermining The Norms Of What We Consider The World Order Since He Got Into Power And In Increasing Success.

Hillary Clinton Is Still - She's Such A Private Person.

I'm Not A Kicker And A Screamer.

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.

I Think Donald Trump Is Going To Find It Very Hard To Do The Kind Of Massive Change He Wants.

The Reason The Betsy Devos Case Was The Centerpiece Case For The Democrats Wasn't About Her Weakness As A Knowledgeable Person On Education Policy.

Knowledgeable Person

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.

Woe To You Who Insults The Intelligence Community, If You're President.

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.

I Have Come To Think We Have To Treat Donald Trump's Tweets Like Snapchat. It's Just Something That Is Going To Go Away. And It Flies Out Of Some Region Of His Brain And It Goes Out Into The Ether. And Usually It's On The Realm Of Media.

People Who Give Money In Large Amount In Politics Are Basically Not Altruistic.

Populists Hate Journalists, They Hate Teachers, They Hate Lawyers, But They Tend To Like Rich People. There's Something Deeply Consistent.

I Came To The Conclusion Is That We Have A Very Shallow View Of Human Nature In The Policy World. We're Really Good At Talking About Material Things, Really Bad At Talking About Emotions, Really Good At Stuff We Can Count, Really Bad At The Deeper Stuff That Actually Drives Behavior.

I Wasn't Born With A Tie Or With Mark Shields Stapled To My Left Hip. I Have Another Life.

People Who Give Money In Large Amount In Politics Are Basically Not Altruistic. They Have Some Issue. They Have Some Interest. It May Be World Peace. It May Be Preserving Carried Interest. But It's Not Altruistic.

Often, I Go And See Films Where I Can See The Beats Coming. So, If I Read Something Where I Don't See The Beats Coming And It Takes Me Somewhere Unexpected, That's A Great Thing To Build Upon.

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.

Trade Agreements Are A Net Benefit For The World, And A Net Benefit For Our Foreign Policy, And In The Long Run, Given The Dislocations, Are A Net Benefit For Us, Too.

The Effectiveness Of A Group Of People Is Not Determined By Their Iq But By How Well They Communicate.

Donald Trump's Being Authentic To What He Ran On And What Got Elected.

Being Authentic

When You Talk About The Problem Of Illegal Immigration, People Are Angry And Polarized. When You Talk About The Answers, The Debate Gets A Little Different.

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.

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.

The Idea That A Big Country Is Going To Go Out And Send Troops Into Some Country To Take Their Resources, And Then The Rest Of The World Is Going To Somehow Trust Us Is Just A Ridiculous Notion.

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.

Friendship Allows You To See Your Own Life But With A Second Sympathetic Self.

Donald Trump Just Needs The Ego Fed All The Time.

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 It

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.

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.

There Was This Famous Clash Of Civilization Thesis From Samuel Huntington, A Political Theorist. And The Idea Was That Western Civilization Is At War With Islam And Maybe Some Of The Other Civilizations Around The World. And I Don't Agree With That. But I Do Think There Is Such A Thing As Western Civilization. I Think It Starts With The Greeks And The Romans. Then It Goes Through The Enlightenment - Or The Reformation, The Enlightenment. It Goes Through The Scientific Age. And It Somewhat Defines Some Of The Cultures And Mores Of Europe And North America And Some Other Countries.

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.

Putin Has Been - And With A Lot Of The Groups, The Conservative Groups, The More Extreme Conservative Groups That Underlie Trump, He's A Bit Of A Hero Because He Speaks For Traditional Values, He's Against The Global Institutions.

On The [andrew] Puzder Point, I Do Agree There Has Been A Double Standard.

Double Standard

I Do Think Donald Trump Is A Fundamentally Unstabilizing Force And That The People Who Swore To Uphold The Constitution Are Going To Have To Take Some Measures At Some Point.

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.

Israel Is A Country Of Six Million People. They Need The U.s. It Used To Be Bipartisan On Israeli Politics. You Never Messed With That Relationship. The Fact That [ Benjamin] Netanyahu Is Willing To Do That, I Thought Would Horrify Voters More Than It Turned Out It Did.

The Moral Foundation Of The Society, The Way We Interact With Each Other Is More Fundamental Than The Supreme Court.

We Know The 65-point Policy Points, To The Extent That They Exist, But Is Hillary Clinton Willing To Be Vulnerable, Is She Willing To Be Funny, Is She Willing To Be Both Authoritative, But Also Real? And So Less What She Says Than The Emotional Tone She Sets. It Takes A Lot Of Confidence To Be A Vulnerable Speaker On This Stage. And Sometimes She Hasn't Always Projected The Confidence It Takes To Be In Some Ways Weak. But That's What I Think People Were Looking For, That Moment Of Human Connection.

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.

It's Important For Presidents To Emotionally Connect, With The Country In Times Of Crisis, But Also With People In Washington. If You Can't Emotionally Connect - And [barack] Obama Is Not The Greatest, But He Can At Least Do It - Then People Won't Be With You When The Times Are Hard.

It's Rare In An Administration For A Secretary Of State And A Secretary Of Defense To Get Along Really Well.

[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.

Just, As I Have Traveled Around From School To School, Whether It's Project-based Learning Or An Outward Bound Curriculum, It's Very Hard To Tell The Difference Between Charters And Public Anymore. There's No Fine Line.

I Want To Try To Make Big Films That Hopefully Connect With People.

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.

When Your Institution Is Under Threat, You Feel You Have A Lot Of Hostility, You Feel Things Are Slipping Away, You Have Got Internal Problems, There's A Tendency To Turn Inward And To Focus On Yourselves.

Two Terrible Behaviors Don't Make A Good Behavior.

People Used To Complain That Selling A President Was Like Selling A Bar Of Soap. But When You Buy Soap, At Least You Get The Soap. In This Campaign, You Just Get Two Guys Telling You They Really Value Cleanliness.

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.

Jim Stavridis Is The Former Nato Commander Who Is Sometimes On People's Lists, Also Very Plausible, Self-possessed, Someone With Sobriety.

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

My Colleague Ross Douthat Wrote That Any Time You Give Donald Trump The Benefit Of The Doubt, He Always Lets You Down.

Benefit Of The Doubt

Donald Trump Is So Egregious In The Way He Talks About Women, The Way He Allegedly Treated Women.

There Is The English Language And Then There's The Trump Language.

English Language

Marital Happiness Is Far More Important Than Anything Else In Determining Personal Well-being.

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.

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.

The Core Threat To Democracy Is Not In The White House, It's The [bush] Haters Themselves.

... Trash Talk ... Washington Floats On A River Of Aspersion.

You Figure Out, What Is The Crucial Issue Facing The Country Right Now? And For Trump, It Was That The Global Economy And The International World Order Were Failing Regular People.

We're No Longer Living In Tammany Hall America.

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.

It's Almost Inherent, But I'm A Massive Stanley Kubrick Fan. I'm A Big Admirer Of What Guys Like Christopher Nolan Have Been Able To Do. For Me, To Be Able To Try To Make Big Films That Reach A Lot Of People, And That Hopefully Have Something To Say, Is A Lofty Goal, But That's My Goal.

Tim Kaine Has Been Obviously A Governor. He's Been A Senator. He's One Of The Smartest Rising Stars In The Democratic Party. He Is Very Plausible As Someone Who Could Sit In And Be President.

People Generally Overestimate How Distinct Their Lives Are, So The Commonalities Seemed To Them Like A Series Of Miracles.

Would [betsy Devos] Be My First Pick? No. Is She Someone Who Has Dedicated Her Life To Education Policy? Yes, Actually, She Has.

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.

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?

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.

President-elect [donald] Trump's Ambassador To Israel Is Further To The Right Than Almost Anyone In Israel, Further To The Right Than Bibi Netanyahu On The Settlements, And Almost Opposes The Two-state Solution, Doesn't He?

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.

The Crossroads Where Government Meets Enterprise Can Be An Exciting Crossroads. It Can Also Be A Corrupt Crossroads. It Requires Moral Rectitude To Separate Public Service From Private Gain.

The Brain Writes The Autobiography Of Our Species At The Conscious Level.

What Bannon And Trump Have Presented Us With Is An Idea Of America That's Not Been The Traditional Idea, Not The Walt Whitman Idea, Not The George Washington, Abraham Lincoln Idea, Which Is One Of Welcoming Because We're The Last, Best Hope Of Earth.

If You Do Have To Look At Polls, You Should Do It No More Than Once Every Few Days, To Get A General Sense Of The State Of The Race. I've Seen The Work On Information Overload, Which Makes People Depressed, Stressed And Freezes Their Brains. I Know That Checking The Polls Constantly Is A Recipe For Self-deception And Anxiety.

You Have A Country That Is 20 Percent Liberal, 40 Percent Conservative. You Have A Country Where Maybe 22 Percent Have Faith In Government. If You're A Liberal, It's Just Going To Be Tough. And You Should Just Expect That. And It's Tough For People On The Right, Too, Because They Don't Get What They Want Either If You're, Say, A Libertarian. So, You Have Got The Country Sort Of Against You. And, Nevertheless, You Have A President.

The Technology's Going To Change, But What People Want To Read Is Going To Be Basically The Same.

There Will Just Always Be A Distance Between You And The People Around You. Now, [hillary Clinton] Can Clearly Emotionally Connect With Her Intimates Within The Zone Of Trust. It's Just The Wall Outside The Zone Of Trust Is So Impermeable.

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.

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.

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.

Decision-making Power, Whether It's On Foreign Affairs Or Domestic Affairs, Is Concentrated In The White House In A Reasonably Small Circle.

It Is Especially Painful When Narcissists Suffer Memory Loss Because They Are Losing Parts Of The Person They Love Most.

I Was Really Fortunate That I Went To A High School Where We Actually Had A Film Theory Program.

Politics Really Is A Team Sport. You Really Have To Work The Whole System To Get Somewhere Down The Road.

There Are Plenty Of Team Players In Government Who Do Whatever The Leader Says. There Are Too Few Difficult Members, Who Have Complicated Minds, Unusual Perspectives, The Toughness To Withstand The Party-line Barrages And A Practical Interest In Producing Results.

If You Thought Donald Trump Was Going To Be Swallowed Up By The Conventional Republican Party Or By Washington, You Were Wrong.

I Don't Know If I'm Sexist, Though I Have Not Paid Much Attention To The Women's Bracket.

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.

Of Course I Don't Know What's Going On In That Meeting On In The Mind Of Donald Trump. But I Do Know One Of The Things President Barack Obama Was Struck By Was How Much Time He Spent On Cyber-security As President. And One Of The Things He Said Was That, In The Years Ahead, The Next President Will Be Spending Even More Time. And Cyber-security Isn't A Thing That Goes Away After This Election. It's A Constant Flow.

I Would Like To See An Animating Passion. Tim Kaine Actually Had A Good Line. What Animated You Before You Got Into Politics? And She Actually Does Have A Story There To Tell About Children. And So Drawing That Animating Passion Will Do Good.

Sometime Over The Past Generation We Became Less Likely To Object To Something Because It Is Immoral And More Likely To Object To Something Because It Is Unhealthy Or Unsafe. So Smoking Is Now A Worse Evil Than Six Of The Ten Commandments, And The Word Sinful Is Most Commonly Associated With Chocolate.

If You Go In A Confirmation Process, You're Going To Be Asked About The Embarrassing Or Stupid Things You Said. You Should Have A View.

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.

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.

It’s Easy To See Why Politicians Would Be Drawn To The Populist Pose. First, It Makes Everything So Simple. The Economic Crisis Was Caused By A Complex Web Of Factors, Including Global Imbalances Caused By The Rise Of China. But With The Populist Narrative, You Can Just Blame Goldman Sachs.

Courage Is The Most Important Virtue Because It Is The Hardest.

Jeff Sessions Has Some Problematic Spots On His History, But He Has Been A Pretty Normal, Respectable Senator, More Conservative Than A Lot Of Us, But A Respectable Senator For A Long Period Of Time.

I'm Thankful That We Live In A Crassly Commercial, Polarized Culture, So Media Jackals Like Me Have A Lot Of Work To Do.

The Policies Of The Democratic Party Have Always Been In Cultural Consonance With The Culture Of The Working Class. And, Somehow, They Missed That.

I Think Charter Schools, Choice, And Frankly School Standards Need A Champion.

If I Had To Fault President [barack] Obama, I Would Say That Sometimes Governs Like A Visitor From A Morally Superior Civilization.

[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 Don't Blame The Democrats For Fighting. They Have Got A Very Energized Base. And There Is A Lot To Complain About A Lot Of These Nominees. But I Think, If You Are Actually Going To Turn Someone Down From A President's [donald Trump] Own Cabinet, It Better Be A Lot More Egregious Than The Cases We Have Seen.

One Of The Things Capitalism Does Is, It Does Enhance And Exacerbate The Sin Of Pride, Making Yourself, The Material World The Center Of Your Universe, Instead Of God's Will.

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.

The Natural Human Reaction Is To Greet Hatred With Hatred, Revenge By Revenge. That's The Natural Genetic Reaction.

Every Time Kellyanne Conway Goes On Tv, There's Another Fight With Whoever's Interviewing Her That Particular Day.

If Donald Trump Wants To Fire Somebody For Not Getting Obamacare Repealed, He Should Fire Himself.

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.

If You Withdraw From The Game, You're Out Of The Game. And We Have Withdrawn From The Game. And We Said Bashar Assad Has To Go. He's Going To Stay. So We're Out Of The Game.

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.

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.

I Take A Benign View Of Digital Connectedness. I Notice In Most Young People's Lives, Facebook And Such Doesn't Replace Normal Dating Or Hanging Out, It Just Facilitates It.

I Generally Think Debates Within A Party Should Not Be Treated As A Scandal. They Should Be Treated As A Sign Of Strength, To Be Honest.

People Generally Don't Suffer High Rates Of Ptsd After Natural Disasters. Instead, People Suffer From Ptsd After Moral Atrocities. Soldiers Who've Endured The Depraved World Of Combat Experience Their Own Symptoms. Trauma Is An Expulsive Cataclysm Of The Soul.

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.

If We Got Rid Of Everybody In Washington Who Sold Access For Donations, Then The Town Would Be Empty. But It's Unseemly.

Things That Change History Tend To Be Organized.

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.

That Is The Job Of The Catholic Church, To Be A Balance To The Materialistic Drives Of Our Culture And Of Economy.

Populists Love Rich People. They Just Hate Professionals.

Recovering From Suffering Is Not Like Recovering From A Disease. Many People Don’t Come Out Healed; They Come Out Different. They Crash Through The Logic Of Individual Utility And Behave Paradoxically. Instead Of Recoiling From The Sorts Of Loving Commitments That Almost Always Involve Suffering, They Throw Themselves More Deeply Into Them. Even While Experiencing The Worst And Most Lacerating Consequences, Some People Double Down On Vulnerability. They Hurl Themselves Deeper And Gratefully Into Their Art, Loved Ones And Commitments.

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.

The Government Is Supposed To Provide A Level Playing Field Where People Can Compete Fairly. It's Not Supposed To Cut Deals With One Company Or Another To Do So.

Sometimes, You Go - You Achieve A Few Things In Life. I Have Achieved More Career Success Than I Ever Experienced Or That I Ever Thought. And I Just Realized, It Doesn't Make You Happy. It's An Elemental Truth. It's So True.

Trending Author

David Attenborough

Richard Simmons

Category