The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character

Shifting from résumé virtues to the deeper character that outlasts achievement

What are eulogy virtues, and how do you build them according to David Brooks?

David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.

In The Road to Character, David Brooks studies historical figures — Augustine, Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower — looking for what shaped lasting character. His diagnosis is that we live in a culture saturated with self-promotion and personal branding, optimizing for a résumé nobody reads at a funeral. The eulogy virtues — kindness, courage, honesty, faithfulness — are built differently: through humility about your own limitations, through commitments that cost you something, through the long slow work of confronting your own faults. Below are the core practices his framework implies, each with its mechanism and a candid read on where the evidence is strong and where this is philosophical argument.