Those born in the poorest quarter of American society have an 8% chance of earning a college degree. Those born in the wealthiest quarter of American society have a 75% chance of earning a college degree. - David Brooks
Young Arab men are not going to walk away from extremism because they can suddenly afford a Slurpee. They will walk away when they can devote themselves to a some call to serve a cause that connects nationalism to dignity and democracy and transcends a lifetime. - David Brooks
People who live according to the pure code of honor are not governed by the profit motive; they are governed by the thymotic urge, the quest for recognition. They seek the sort of glory that can be won only by showing strength in confrontation with death. - David Brooks
The inner struggle against one’s own weaknesses is the central drama of life. - David Brooks
Humanities are the instructors of enchantment. - David Brooks
Friends usually bring out better versions of each other. People feel unguarded and fluid with their close friends. - David Brooks
you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to say a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes. - David Brooks
As Paul Tillich put it, suffering introduces you to yourself and reminds you that you are not the person you thought you were. - David Brooks
Just as he was slowly bringing order to his own internal life, he would also bring order to his language. - David Brooks
In the evenings she got on her knees and inflicted her piety on her sister: - David Brooks
Her characters tend to err when they reject the grubby and complex circumstances of everyday life for abstract and radical notions. They thrive when they work within the rooted spot, the concrete habit, the particular reality of their town and family. - David Brooks
A person who is interrupted while performing a task takes 50% more time to complete it and make 50% more errors. - David Brooks
The struggle against the weakness in yourself is never a solitary struggle. No person can achieve self-mastery or his or her own. - David Brooks
If colleges are going to justify themselves, they are going to have to thrive at those things that require physical proximity. That includes moral and spiritual development. Very few of us cultivate our souls as hermits. We do it through small groups and relationships and in social contexts. - David Brooks
Human beings are primarily defined by what we desire, not what we know. - David Brooks
You can’t build rich lives simply by reading sermons or following abstract rules. Example is the best teacher. Moral improvement occurs most reliably when the heart is warmed, - David Brooks
most of us can only deny short-term pleasures because we see a realistic path between self-denial now and something better down the road. - David Brooks
In 1950, the [Gallup organization] asked high school kids, are you a very important person? Then 12 percent said yes. Asked again in 2005, 80 percent said, yes, I'm a very important person. - David Brooks
[T]he road to character is built by confronting your own weakness. - David Brooks
Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self. - David Brooks
There are heroes and schmucks in all worlds. The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself. - David Brooks
You can't counter a heroic impulse with a mundane and bourgeois response. You can counter it only with a more compelling heroic vision. - David Brooks
I make honorable things pleasant to children." A teacher from Sparta - David Brooks
Students are taught how to do things, but many are not forced to reflect on why they should do them or what we are here for. - David Brooks
The imagination simplifies our endless desires and causes us to fantasize that they can be fulfilled. - David Brooks
Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. - David Brooks
Freedom without structure is its own slavery. - David Brooks
They finally achieve a sort of outward-facing union. - David Brooks
It was easier to come to maturity when there were more well-defined philosophical options. - David Brooks
Angela Duckworth has shown how important grit and perseverance are to lifetime outcomes. College students who report that they finish whatever they begin have higher grades than their peers, even ones with higher SATs. - David Brooks
Dan P. McAdams argues that children develop a narrative tone which influences their stories for the rest of their lives. Children gradually adopt an enduring assumption that everything will turn out well, or badly, depending on their childhood. - David Brooks
wonderful people are made, not born – that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue, built slowly from specific moral and spiritual accomplishments. - David Brooks
Nearly every parent on earth operates on the assumption that character matters a lot to the life outcomes of their children. Nearly every government antipoverty program operates on the assumption that it doesn’t. - David Brooks
How do you teach a classroom of Sybils who are breaking apart and reforming right in front of you? - David Brooks
if you think you can organize your own salvation you are magnifying the very sin that keeps you from it. - David Brooks
To nurture your career, it makes sense to cultivate your strengths. To nurture your moral core, it is necessary to confront your weaknesses. - David Brooks
Her genius derives from the fact that she was capable of the deepest feeling but also of the most discerning and disciplined thought. - David Brooks
Online life is so delicious because it is socializing with almost no friction. - David Brooks
(A middle-class child's) parents didn't just give him money. They passed down habits, knowledge, and cognitive traits. - David Brooks