The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.

If we have to continue to live under sequestration, it will have a maximum impact on our ability to fulfill the president's strategic guidance. We can't do it all. It's as simple as that, with the limitations of the budget as severe as they are. These deep, abrupt cuts have forced us to make decisions that are not in the interest of America.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform.

No one person leads alone - can't do it, it's impossible. It doesn't make any sense. You need a team.

In a general way, if one cannot attribute to the Jew the whole responsibility of the situation, economic, political, and social, by which Algeria is being strangled, it is no exaggeration to recognize him as morally guilty, for the great part of his rìle here, still more than elsewhere, has consisted in corrupting, degrading, and disintegrating.