David Brooks

AUTHOR PROFILE

David Brooks

David Brooks is described in biographical records as an American army officer and politician (1756-1838). The selections gathered here touch on humility, knowledge, wisdom. This profile brings the attributed quotations together with their available source information.

FEATURED QUOTE

“Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong.”

— David Brooks

Biography at a glance

Profile: American army officer and politician (1756-1838)
Quotes in this collection: 9

Life and work

The available biographical record identifies David Brooks through the role above. This collection includes 9 quotations credited to David Brooks. Each quotation page preserves its own citation, when supplied, so readers can follow the passage back to its stated context.

Reading the quotations

The selections gathered here touch on humility, knowledge, wisdom. These topic links make it easier to compare these words with other voices in the LDS Flow library. Citations are shown on the individual quotation pages where the source collection provided them.

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Sources and further reading

Background on David Brooks

Quotes by David Brooks

9 quotes

“Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“We don’t become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. We don’t become what we know. Education is a process of love formation. When you go to a school, it should offer you new things to love.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“The self-effacing person is soothing and gracious, while the self-promoting person is fragile and jarring. Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused with lovely emotions like admiration, companionship, and gratitude.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“In this method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“Start your work from where you live, with the small concrete needs right around you. Help ease tension in your workplace. Help feed the person right in front of you. Personalism holds that we each have a deep personal obligation to live simply, to look after the needs of our brothers and sisters, and to share in the happiness and misery they are suffering.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks

“Many of our society’s great problems flow from people not feeling seen and known. There is a core trait that we all have to get better at, and that is the trait of seeing each other deeply and being deeply seen.”

"Finding the Road to Character"

— David Brooks

“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom. That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.”

The Road to Character

— David Brooks