Home > Work > The Road to Character

The Road to Character QUOTES

The Road to Character QUOTES

121 " The Closing of the American Mind. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

122 " The message is the person, perfected over lifetimes of effort that was set in motion by yet another wise person now hidden from the recipient by the dim mists of time. Life is much bigger than we think, cause and effect intertwined in a vast moral structure that keeps pushing us to do better, become better, even when we dwell in the most painful confused darkness. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

123 " The hero of this sort of humble life is not averse to the pleasures of praise, but the petty distinctions you earn for yourself do not really speak to your essential value as a human being. God possesses talents so all-encompassing that in "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

124 " Humility is having an accurate assessment of your own nature and your own place in the cosmos. Humility is awareness that you are an underdog in the struggle against your own weakness. Humility is an awareness that your individual talents alone are inadequate to the tasks that have been assigned to you. Humility reminds you that you are not the center of the universe, but you serve a larger order. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

125 " religion meant when they said that humility is the greatest of virtues,” she later wrote, “and if you can’t learn it, God will teach it to you by humiliation. Only so can a man be really great, and it was in those "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

126 " lacking a moral vocabulary, "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

127 " A person does not choose a vocation. A vocation is a calling. People generally feel they have no choice in the matter. Their life would be unrecognizable unless they pursued this line of activity. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

128 " A moderate person can start out hot on both ends, both fervent in a capacity for rage and fervent in a desire for order, both Apollonian at work and Dionysian at play, both strong in faith and deeply doubtful, both Adam I and Adam II. A "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

129 " Change happens from the outside in. It is through the exercise of drill that a person becomes self-regulating. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

130 " The point of all this was to separate instant emotion from action, to reduce the power of temporary feelings. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

131 " Life is much bigger than we think, cause and effect intertwined in a vast moral structure that keeps pushing us to do better, "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

132 " but never let her own opinions prevail over the decisions of the beneficiaries. The idea was to let the poor determine their own lives rather than becoming dependent upon others. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

133 " it is best to learn those habits of self-restraint, including emotional self-restraint, at an early age. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

134 " 13. No good life is possible unless it is organized around a vocation. If you try to use your work to serve yourself, you’ll find your ambitions and expectations will forever run ahead and you’ll never be satisfied. If you try to serve the community, you’ll always wonder if people appreciate you enough. But if you serve work that is intrinsically compelling and focus just on being excellent at that, you will wind up serving yourself and the community obliquely. A vocation is not found by looking within and finding your passion. It is found by looking without and asking what life is asking of us. What problem is addressed by an activity you intrinsically enjoy? "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

135 " The Woman Behind the New Deal. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

136 " moral culture that brought together several ancient traditions: a chivalric devotion to service and courtesy, a stoic commitment to emotional self-control, and a classical devotion to honor. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

137 " The same lust that leads to children leads to adultery. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

138 " If you want to usher real change, he told her, you have to work with the sleazy legislators and the rough party pols. You have to be practical, subordinate your personal purity to the cause. Perkins learned that in a fallen world it is often the “tainted” people who help you do the most good. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

139 " Perkins’s grandmother had told her that when somebody opens a door, you should always walk through. So Perkins confronted FDR with terms if she was to become his labor secretary. If she were to join the cabinet, FDR would have to commit to a broad array of social insurance policies: massive unemployment relief, a giant public works program, minimum wage laws, a Social Security program for old age insurance, and the abolition of child labor. “I suppose you are going to nag me about this forever,” Roosevelt told her. She confirmed she would. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character

140 " The central fallacy of modern life is the belief that accomplishments of the Adam I realm can produce deep satisfaction. That’s false. Adam I’s desires are infinite and always leap out ahead of whatever has just been achieved. Only Adam II can experience deep satisfaction. Adam I aims for happiness, but Adam II knows that happiness is insufficient. "

― David Brooks , The Road to Character