Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by David Brooks

Quote by David Brooks

“The shock of public hostility served as a stimulant. It made them acutely conscious of how society functioned.”

Quote by David Brooks

Create image

Author

David Brooks
David Brooks

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

“Today, millions of people from around the world are tuned in to this hundred-year-old courthouse, designed in the neoclassical style and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's a building that stands as a proud symbol of American justice. Over the last several weeks a murder trial has been unfolding here, and the media attention it's gotten has been ferocious.”

MediaJustice SystemVerdictInfluencerDocumentaryMurder Trial
Book:The Anatomy of Desire
Create image

“পিতৃশ্রাদ্ধ করতে প্রতাপ শেষবার গিয়েছিলেন মালখানগরে। প্রতাপ শক্ত চরিত্রের মানুষ, সবাই তাকে তেজস্বী পুরুষ হিসেবে মানে, কিন্তু সেবার তিনি খুব কান্নাকাটি করেছিলেন। বাবার মৃত্যুর সঙ্গে সঙ্গে পূর্বপুরুষদের সঙ্গে সব যোগাযোগ ছিন্ন হয়ে গেল, মাটি থেকে উপড়ে তোলা হলো এক বর্ধিষ্ণু বৃক্ষের শিকড়। পূর্ববাংলার এই নদীময় প্রান্তর, এই মিষ্টি বাতাস, খেজুর রসের স্বাদের মতন ভোর, ঠাকুমার গল্পের আমেজমাখা সন্ধ্যা, এসব আর দেখা হবে না। এরপর থেকে কলকাতায় ভাড়াটে বাড়ির অন্ধকার ঘুপচি ঘরে চির নির্বাসন।”

Partition1947Bengal
Book:পূর্ব-পশ্চিম
Create image

“Can’t say my Uttarpara ancestral home isn’t my homeland, I know unidentified bodies, their eyes plucked out, float by in the Ganga. Can’t say my aunt’s Ahiritola isn’t my homeland, I know abducted girls are bound and gagged in Sonagachi nearby. Can’t say my uncle’s at Panihati isn’t my homeland, I know who was killed, and where, in broad daylight. Can’t say my adolescent Konnagar isn’t my homeland, I know who was sent to cut whose throat. Can’t say my youth’s Calcutta isn’t my homeland, I know who threw bombs, set fire on buses, trams. Can’t say West Bengal isn’t my homeland, I’ve the right to be tortured to death in its lock-ups, I’ve the right to starve and have rickets in its tea gardens, I’ve the right to hang myself at its handloom mills, I’ve the right to become bones buried by its party lumpen, I’ve the right to have my mouth taped, silenced, I’ve the right to hear the leaders sprout gibberish, abuse, I’ve the right to a heart attack on its streets blocked by protestors, Can’t say Bengali isn’t my homeland.”

LovePoliticsSocietyHungryBengal
Book:ছোটোলোকের কবিতা
Create image

“Because it begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun... One feels that this inexhaustible fancy is weary at last and worn out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood, outgrowing one's old ideals: they are being shattered into fragments, into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else! And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him!”

LifeRealityFantasyDreams
Book:White Nights
Create image

“It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters to the Malayan sea I have been there too: the fading world of Vimbisara and Asoka Even further—the forgotten city of Vidarva, Today I am a weary soul although the ocean of life around continues to foam, Except for a few soothing moments with Natore’s Banalata Sen. Her hair as if the dark night of long lost Vidisha, Her face reminiscent of the fine works of Sravasti, When I saw her in the shadow it seemed as if a ship-wrecked mariner in a far away sea has spotted a cinnamon island lined with greenish grass. “Where had you been lost all these days? ” yes, she demanded of me, Natore’s Banalata Sen raising her eyes of profound refuge. At the day’s end evening crawls in like the sound of dews, The kite flaps off the smell of sun from its wings. When all colours take leave from the world except for the flicker of the hovering fireflies The manuscript is ready with tales to be told All birds come home, rivers too, All transactions of the day being over Nothing remains but darkness to sit face to face with Banalata Sen.”

LoveDeathNatureBeautyBengal
Book:Banalta Sen
Create image