Home / Quotes / Quote by David Brooks

Quote by David Brooks

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

Quote by David Brooks

Author

David Brooks is an American commentator and writer known for his insightful views on political, cultural, and social issues. Born on August 11, 1961, he graduated from Columbia University and has served as a columnist for The New York Times. Brooks has also appeared on various television and radio programs as a commentator. more

You May Also Like

“People who are humble about their own nature are moral realists. Moral realists are aware that we are all built from “crooked timber”— from Immanuel Kant’s famous line, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Author: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.”

Culture Humility

Author: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.”

Humility Ministry Discipleship

Author:David Brooks

“Abilene had gone from boomtown to Bible Belt, from whorehouses to schoolmarms, without any of the intervening phases.”

Humility Maturation

Author:David Brooks

“Confidence is this: Wearing your triumphs with humility, and wearing your scars with pride. Many of us do precisely the opposite.”

Life Wisdom Humility Pride Confidence Adversity Scars

Author:Umair Haque

“Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in striving than in winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.”

Life Effort Beauty Humility Faults Triumph Failures Odd Thomas Striving Disheartened Perceverance

Book:Odd Interlude

Source: Odd Interlude

“[T]he road to character is built by confronting your own weakness.”

Humility Self Discipline Discipleship

Author:David Brooks

“Kate lost a mother," I said, "but I lost a nothing." Kate doesn't feel that way," Jack assured me. But what about everybody else besides Kate? How can I ever explain to anyone what she was when she and I had no name? People need names for everything. I wasn't a relative or a friend, I was just an object of her kindness." He wiped my cheeks, saying Ssshh. I buried my face in his shoulder. True kindness is stabilizing," I went on. "When you feel it and when you express it, it becomes the whole meaning of things. Like all there is to achieve. It's life, demystified. A place out of self, a network of simple pleasures, not a waltz, but like whirls within a waltz." You're the one now," Jack said definitively. "That's why you met her. She had something she had to pass on." (p. 95)”

Death Relationships Loss Grief Kindness Labels Jack Evie Hamann

Book:Anthropology of an American Girl

Source: Anthropology of an American Girl

“We are a biological species arising from Earth’s biosphere as one adapted species among many; and however splendid our languages and cultures, however rich and subtle our minds, however vast our creative powers, the mental process is the product of a brain shaped by the hammer of natural selection upon the anvil of nature.”

Science Psychology Humility

Book:On Human Nature

Source: On Human Nature

“I am weary of this notion of faithfulness to a point of view at all cost. Life around us is ever changing, and I believe that one should try to change one’s slant accordingly—at least once every ten years. The great heroic devotion to one point of view is very alien to me—it’s a lack of humility. Mayakovsky killed himself because his pride would not be reconciled with something new happening within himself—or around him.”

Growth Change Humility Suicide

Author:Boris Pasternak