David Brooks Quotes

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

The office of the President is so staggeringly complicated that nobody can ... be a good President.

The presidency is not about easy choices.

As you approach the presidency, no one seems worthy of it, since it wasn't designed for a human in the first place.

My fellow citizens, the American Presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery.

It sure is hell to be president.

Presidents do not like to preside over such disagreements and scenes. That’s what presidential aides are for.

The Presidency, even to the most experienced politicians, is no bed of roses; and Gen. Taylor like others, found thorns within it. No human being can fill that station and escape censure.

Trump's been a public personality forever, and that's fine if you want him to be a reality-TV host, but if you want him to be president, there's a different standard.

American presidents get to make lots of choices, with one critical exception: what awaits them in the in-box on top of the desk in the Oval Office.

It's far from clear in general that Donald Trump is a guy who really thinks about the details of policy and is going to do the kind of heavy lifting you have to do as president to get those policies through in Congress. I think the hope is that Paul Ryan and his crew will push policies through Congress and Trump will just sign them. That's not really how policy works.

Once Donald Trump takes the oath of office as president of the United States, the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution makes it clear that he cannot accept those favors.

Donald Trump is an especially depressing phenomena because he is so debased and debasing and millions and millions of people want him to be president. We're seeing how at least whole swathes of white America are becoming your worst nightmare of eternal Zombie High School. Something like a perfect mix of Groundhog Day and The Moronic Inferno. How can it be that a guy who looks like a bloated cadaver pulled from the Gowanus canal, with some rouge on his cheeks and a sticky Something About Mary wig, is actually applauded by his followers for making fun of how other people look?

The left portray Donald Trump as somebody that's a walking mental midget, that literally has no idea what he's done here by winning the presidency, that has no idea how to talk, has no idea how to behave. They continue to make the mistake of plugging him into their model. They're plugging him into what they think an accomplished politician is, and he's not that, he's never been that, and he's not going to be that. He doesn't want to a politician, successful or not. He is president and he's going to lead this country in the ways that he's being very open and honest about.

I think Donald Trump should cool down a little bit. To pay more attention to the history. To really understand what U.S.'s value is about. I think, as a president, those things you always have to ask.

Seeing John Major govern the country is like watching Edward Scissorhands try to make balloon animals.

Being President is a little bit like riding a tiger. You have to keep riding, or else you will be swallowed up by it!

Under Lenin the Soviet Union was like a religious revival, under Stalin like a prison, under Khrushchev like a circus, and under Brezhnev like the U.S. Post Office.

The Presidents job, is not to wield power himself, but to lead attention away from it.

[Donald] Trump, I think, is the sort of guy that if he maybe thought he'd made a little bit of a mistake, would find a way out, he wouldn't want to say, "Well, that's what I've done and I'm sticking to it, and I don't give a damn." Which is what the other people in America would be like.

I think Donald Trump is going to find it very hard to do the kind of massive change he wants.

If Donald Trump's main claim to be president of the United States is your business, then I think we should talk about that.

Being President is like the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail... A man in the crowd asked how he liked it, and his reply was that if it wasn't for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.

The presidency is not an office job. If I only sit in the office in Dar es Salaam I'm not running the country.