Timothy Noah Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“Success is a wonderful thing, but it tends not to be the sort of experience that we learn from. We enjoy it; perhaps we even deserve it. But we don't acquire wisdom from it.”

“Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington - the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city's avatars of centrism and continuity - Ford is considered the beau ideal of American leadership.”

“An orthodox belief in big government's inefficiency cannot coexist with an orthodox belief in private industry's inability to compete with big government.”

“Is class snobbery a social reality in the United States? Absolutely, and the kind that's codified by meritocracy is probably more toxic than the old-fashioned kind based on bloodlines.”

“President Obama seems to think that you win by demonstrating that you're a more reasonable person than your opponents. It didn't work too badly, I'll grant, as an electoral strategy in the 2012 election.”

“Romney has become reluctant to say that human activity causes global warming, and even in his greener days he was always somewhat cagey about which remedies he'd support.”

“Stock prices relative to company assets are no better at signaling the likelihood of future earnings growth than they were the day the Titanic sank, and risk management is a good deal worse.”

“Whenever a president nominates somebody to a high-profile post, there is always the risk that some skeleton, real or imagined, will emerge from the nominee's closet and doom the whole enterprise.”

“Being superintendent or the superintendent's chief of staff is important work, but there's no chance it's as difficult as being a teacher, and I hesitate to say that it's as important.”

“Electing Barack Obama president was a glorious Jackie Robinson moment for the United States of America. Obama didn't just win; he became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a popular-vote majority.”