Donald Rumsfeld

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

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

In the execution of Presidential decisions work to be true to his views, in fact and tone.

Don’t divide the world into “them” and “us.” Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours.

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.

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

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

He that lives to forever, never fears dying.

Words are alive; cut them and they bleed.

I answer the heroic question Death where is thy sting? It is here in my heart and mind and memories

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.