Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Walk around. If you are invisible, the mystique of the President's office may perpetuate inaccurate impressions about you or the President, to his detriment. After all, you may not be as bad as they're saying.

To gain support in U.S. Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.

Find ways to decentralize. Move decision making authority down and out. Encourage a more entrepreneurial approach.

Certainty without power can be interesting, even amusing. Certainty with power can be dangerous.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to 'carry it off.'

... something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.

We [the USA] do have a big nation's problem. We have the problem of a nation that's got two oceans, oceans on either side. People come from all across the globe and want to live here and they want to work here and they want to invest here. And that's a good thing. And they make up this country. But as a people, we [americans] are not highly skilled in languages. We're not highly skilled in knowledge of other cultures. And that's a problem.

Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.

Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here.

We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.

Don't say 'the White House wants.' Buildings can't want.

At 78 years old, I am not surprised at much anymore. Germany has taken divergent positions before, so has France, so has England, so has the US.

Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often.

The problem is the people who tend to be the best organized are the most radical and the most vicious.

A few. . . critics are the only people I ever heard use the phrase 'imminent threat.' I didn't, the president didn't.

When someone with a rural accent says, "I don't know much about politics," zip up your pockets.

When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later.

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Within a week, or a month, Saddam could give his WMD to al-Qaeda.

Those who made the decisions with imperfect knowledge will be judged in hindsight by those with considerably more information at their disposal and time for reflection.

Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

Don't 'over-control' like a novice pilot. Stay loose enough from the flow that you can observe it, modify, and improve it.

After the German abstention at the UN, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle commented that Germany doesn't always have to stand on the side of its traditional allies. Berlin can look for new partners all over the world.

Make decisions about the President's personal security. He can overrule you, but don't ask him to be the one to counsel caution.

An institution that...would permit Iraq, a terrorist state that refuses to disarm, to become soon the chair of the United Nations Commission on Disarmament, and which recently elected Libya - a terrorist state - to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights of all things, seems not to be even struggling to regain credibility. That these acts of irresponsibility could happen now, at this moment in history, is breathtaking.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Preserve the President's options. He may need them.

It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.

They will do more whether we do what we're doing or whether we don't do what we're doing. And the idea that you could appease them [terrorists] by stopping doing what we're doing or some implication that by doing what we're doing we're inciting them to attack us is just utter nonsense. It's just - it's kind of like feeding an alligator, hoping it eats you last.

There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there are going to be unintended loss of life.

Our goal is to defend the American people, and to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and to liberate the Iraqi people.

Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.

Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary.

Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable.

Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning.

You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

We'll have to deal with the networks. One of the ways to do that is to drain the swamp they live in. And that means dealing not only with the terrorists, but those who harbor terrorists. This will take a long, sustained effort. It will require the support of the American people as well as our friends and allies around the world.

One thing appears reasonably certain, and that's that those who make allegations of a culture of deception, of intimidation or cover-up need to be extremely careful about such accusations.

Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.

I think we ought to have a new rule: You can ask two questions, and then we can pick the one we want to answer.

If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't I'll just respond cleverly.

The way to do well is to do well.

Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction.

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.