Quote

Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes.

Donald Rumsfeld

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Donald Rumsfeld
Age: 88 †
Born: 1932
Born: July 9
Died: 2021
Died: June 29
Author
Businessperson
Diplomat
Former U.S. Secretary Of Defense
Military Officer
Politician
Chicago
Illinois
Donald Henry Rumsfeld
Walks
Speak
Didn
Successors
Predecessors
Boots
Ill
Shoes
Walk

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

Image
In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
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.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
It is very difficult to spend federal (the taxpayers') dollars so that the intended result is achieved.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
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.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Don't automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn't considered key aspects of the issue.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
The Cold War was a war, and we won it.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
The worst mistake is to have the best ladder and the wrong wall.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons - including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
... 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.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn't making mistakes that's critical it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
The United States isn't going to do anything that it's not capable of doing. And if we do something, we'll be capable of doing it.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.
Donald Rumsfeld
Image
Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?
Donald Rumsfeld