Donald Rumsfeld

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

Don’t be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it.

When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don’t eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

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

Throughout the two leadership campaigns I read quite a lot of Oscar Wilde.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.

I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.

If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared.

We don’t pass by on the other side.

Eventually we’re going to get something done and it’s going to be really, really good.

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election.

You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.

When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused.

The U.S. will not permit constructive programs in its own domains, so it must ensure that they are destroyed elsewhere to terminate ‘the threat of a good example’.

It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.

Being president doesn’t change who you are – it reveals who you are.

…social spending may well arouse public interest and participation, thus enhancing the threat of democracy; the public cares about hospitals, roads, neighborhoods, and so on, but has no opinion about the choice of missiles and high-tech fighter planes.

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.