Chuck Hagel Quotes

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

There has to be a reason and objective (to air strikes). What does it do to move the effort down the road for a political conversation?

The president of the United States is the commander in chief, and the people who work with him at the National Security Council are his arm in working with the Defense Department. And, quite frankly, they have responsibility for all of the government. We are one component of the government.

The recent wave of Taliban attacks has made clear that the international community must not waiver in its support for a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan.

It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out.

And this - this board was - was impanelled in 1951. And it's gone through ups and downs in how the secretaries have used it. But I have put a premium on that advisory board.

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.

I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

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

Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.

There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important.

I think this is the biggest lesson a president or any of us who has responsibility to govern have to learn: There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction.

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

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.