The daily activity that contributes most to happiness is having dinner with friends. The daily activity that detracts most from happiness is commuting. Eat more. Commute less.
The more people doubt their own beliefs the more, paradoxically, they are inclined to proselytize in favor of them.
We have rapidly increasing technology, which is making life very good for people who are good at using words, and not so good for people who are not good at using words.
I think globalization has been really good for America.
People generally overestimate how distinct their lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them like a series of miracles.
Charter schools are public schools. They're paid for publicly and they're part of the public system. They just have a more independent structure.
... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion.
I do think Hillary Clinton should have pivoted and say, I am change, I am change, because people do want some change.
If you're running a successful administration, then you're loyal to people who are basically good who make a mistake. And that seems to be essential for any organization. And it should be essential if this were a normal administration, rather than a fiefdom, where everybody simply tries to give Donald Trump a good headline every day.
Stairway to Wisdom”) David Brooks detailed the needed ingredients to gaining a deep understanding of a social problem, beginning with the data and moving on to first-hand accounts. The highest rung on his stairway, though, went beyond those: “Empathy opens you up to absorb the good and the bad. Love impels you not just to observe but to seek union—to think as another thinks and feel as another feels.
I expect [Donald] Trump to do what he's done very successfully, which is, whether you like him or not, he will be the dominant player .
For us going forward, it's to not reverse the dynamism of American society and the diversity. It's to pay attention to the people who are being ruined by it, and so this doesn't happen again.
It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero
Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.
America has an important role to play as the world leader in creating a global order, free trade, free waterways, free commerce, free movement of people. That happens because of U.S. military might.
We actually have to have a government. We have to have people confirmed and put into office.
One of the things I think about with Donald Trump is what are his words actually attached to? With Trump, I'm not sure the words have roots. They are emanations of his psyche, but has he thought it through? Is there an argument, is there a policy implication?
I wouldn't say philosophy and theology are dead. Brain science doesn't invent new philosophies but it helps remind us which of our existing philosophies are more true.
The three people who are most often talked about with Hillary Clinton, whether it's Tim Kaine or Vilsack or Cory Booker, they are three extremely nice people.
If you thought Donald Trump was going to be swallowed up by the conventional Republican Party or by Washington, you were wrong.
I think the Republican budget priorities are messed up. I salute for the way they're attacking some of the entitlement programs, but they are taking huge cuts, by pretending they're just block-granting it to the states, out of Medicaid, from the least fortunate.
For the Democrats, they're trying to avoid having the Sanders-Clinton debate over and over again. But, to some degree, they're sentenced to that debate. Clinton is much more embracing of the global economy and the international world order. Sanders and Warren are much less so. And they have got to figure out which side the party is on, if they're going to have a clear message. I think this is probably one you probably can't straddle.
I think the Barack Obama position and the majority position of American Jews and a lot of Americans is a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. Settlements get in the way of that. If they're not stopped soon, there is no prospect for that type of solution.
People have been raised in a morality that says, "If it feels all right for you, it's probably OK."
If you just rely on one model, you tend to amputate reality to make it fit your model.
