David Brooks Quotes

One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope.

Some of our finest leaders were not intellectuals at all, and I admire them enormously because they weren't. Harry Truman wasn't.

A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.

Putin is a better leader than Obama, because Obama's not a leader, so he's certainly doing a better job than Obama is, and that's all.

[George W. Bush] has balls. And he's a leader. Unfortunately his balls and leadership are in the service of shitty ideas. We need his balls on someone who thinks right.

Andrea Leadsom, I think, has all the qualities that you need at the moment. She's got a lot of zap, a lot of drive, and all the experience. Plus I think she can articulate what's needed at the moment, which is a bit of an antidote to some of the gloom and negativity and misunderstanding about what the Brexit vote means.

I think leadership of any kind requires trust and transparency and voters should demand no less from their political leadership in government.

It is no easy task to lead men. But it is easy enough to drive them.

I think what the American people want more than anything else is a strong and decisive leader.

I think Donald Trump showed a real quality that every leader needs, and that's resiliency.

There are many ways to study Walt Disney, but I think learning about Walt as a leader probably has had the biggest impact on me.

I think that the process of figuring out what kind of leader I wanted to be was challenging, because as an actor, you work alone, really.

The leader works in the open and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

I think Donald Trump is gonna do great. Because I've worked with him and known him a long time. He's a guy who is not programmed to fail.

I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy.

I think that the vice president is a person reflecting a half-glass-full mentality.

Whoever the next prime minister of this country will be, it will be a female prime minister and a female prime minister who has formidable skills and I know whichever one of the two wins they will lead this country well.

Quality effective leaders have the confidence to trust others to try, succeed, and sometimes to fail.

It really is a choice between division or unity, between an economy that works for everyone or one that is stacked for those at the top, between strong, steady leadership or a loose cannon.

Strong leaders encourage you to do things for your own benefit, not just theirs.

Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them.

I think I'd have a good relationship with Putin. Who knows? He's been a leader far more than Barack Obama has been a leader.

The greatest leader in the world could never win a campaign unless he understood the men he had to lead.

Being a leader is one thing I've never felt comfortable with. It's not my nature.

I have never been over concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless.