Aging & Wisdom Quote by David Dinkins

There is an old-school politician's sleight of hand in David Dinkins's praise of children: it sounds like a sentimental aside, but it quietly rewires status. He name-checks Princeton, Harvard, Yale, then tops it with Columbia and NYU, a roll call of credentialed America. The point isn't bragging; it's establishing that he has been in the rooms we treat as synonymous with "the best" and is therefore qualified to demote them.

The pivot - "and that's nice" - is doing heavy work. It's a gentle deflation, a pat on the head to elite validation. Dinkins keeps the universities in frame to reassure the upwardly mobile listener ("I value learning; I'm not anti-intellectual"), then shifts the moral spotlight to "the real little ones". That phrase is the tell. "Real" implies authenticity, unfiltered humanity, a kind of civic truth-telling that adults and institutions sand down. It's also a subtle critique of professionalized politics and academia: grown-ups are complicated, strategic, self-protective. Kids are not. They are, in his framing, the last demographic not yet fully trained to perform.

Context matters. Dinkins governed New York City when public conversation about "the future" was code for hard fights over schools, safety, and who the city was for. By elevating young children over prestigious campuses, he's signaling a governing philosophy: invest attention where it changes a life early, not where it polishes a resume late. It's affection, but it's also agenda - the kind that makes warmth function as policy.