Quotes from David Brooks

Human beings are primarily defined by what we desire, not what we know.

Koch was not one for grand plans. He just made constant adjustments. He always used the word 'stewardship' to describe his leadership style. He'd inherited something great and he didn't screw it up. p259

Humanities are the instructors of enchantment.

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.

You can't counter a heroic impulse with a mundane and bourgeois response. You can counter it only with a more compelling heroic vision.

If you want to win the war for attention, don't try to say 'no' to the trivial distractions you find on the information smorgasbord; try to say 'yes' to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing, and let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else.

They say that foreplay for a woman is anything that happens twenty-four hours before intercourse.

Male desire is pretty steady and only dips in response to some invisible awareness of their partner's menstrual cycles. Studies in strip clubs have found that dancers' tips plunge 45 percent while they are menstruating.

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.

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.

The houses were small, there was no air-conditioning, and TV had not yet penetrated, so when the weather was warm, social life was conducted on the front stoops, in the alleys, and with children running from house to house all day. A young homeowner was enveloped in a series of communal activities that, as Ehrenhalt puts it, "only the most determined loner could escape: barbecues, coffee klatches, volleyball games, baby-sitting co-ops and the constant bartering of household goods.

Social media technology creates a culture in which people turn into little brand managers, using Facebook, twitter, text messages to create a falsely upbeat, slightly overexuberant, external self that can be famous first in a small sphere and then, with luck, in a large one.

que la música en los oídos de los demás sea mi sinfonía, que la sonrisa en los labios de los demás sea mi felicidad».

The people who are made larger by suffering go on to stage two small rebellions. First, they rebel against their ego ideal. .. down in the valley, they lose interest in their ego ideal

The people we admire the most are rooted in nature, but have surpassed nature.

Sin is a necessary piece of our mental furniture because it reminds us that life is a moral affair.

Plato believed the soul was divided into three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite.

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

What we have before us then, is three distinct purposes for a university: the commercial purpose (starting a career), Stephen Pinker's cognitive purpose (acquiring information and learning how to think) and (William) Deresiewicz's moral purpose (building an integrated self).

I never met an authority figure I didn't like.

The hero becomes strongest at his weakest point.

They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world:

If you have realistically low expectations, you'll end up pleased in most circumstances.

The beauty in life is in the struggles along the way to character.