Donald Rumsfeld

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

One of your tasks is to separate the “personal” from the “substantive.” The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

Don’t blame the boss. He has enough problems.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

I don’t do quagmires.

Now I’m a warrior.

Who we are now is all that really matters.

If you believe, you will. If you don’t, you won’t.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

Don’t wait until you’re in a crisis to come up with a crisis plan.

Wagon Train was on. It seemed to be beaming in from some foreign country. I shut that off, too, and went into another room, a windowless one with a painted door – a dark cavern with a floor-to-ceiling library. I switched on the lamps. The place had an overpowering presence of literature and you couldn’t help but lose your passion for dumbness.

There are four things every person has more of than they know; sins, debt, years, and foes.

Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.

The less you know, the more you believe.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

What gives life its value you can find – and lose. But never posess. This holds good above all for “the Truth about Life.

You know, it sounds like I’m bragging in some way, but as far as career stuff, there’s not that much stuff that scares me. I know what I can do well.

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.

It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

Should a man quit at 40 he is failure-Retire at that age is sorry failure.