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Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

Donald Rumsfeld

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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
Travel
Journey
Convenience
Arguments
Inevitably
Trip
Lack
Integrity
Argument

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

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... 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.
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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.
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I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think and I assume it's what I said.
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Have a deputy and develop a successor. Don't be consumed by the job or you'll risk losing your balance. Keep your mooring lines to the outside world - family, friends, neighbors, people out of government, and people who may not agree with you.
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I'm glad you asked. It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.
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One of your tasks is to separate the 'personal' from the 'substantive.' The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.
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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
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Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned it was - by a taxpayer.
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The natural state of man is to want to be free. To have opportunities. To have choices.
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A few. . . critics are the only people I ever heard use the phrase 'imminent threat.' I didn't, the president didn't.
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Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.
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Then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect.
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If there are people who yearn for the days when Saddam Hussein was in power, then I am not among them.
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It is very difficult to spend federal (the taxpayers') dollars so that the intended result is achieved.
Donald Rumsfeld
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You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Donald Rumsfeld
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No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Being Vice President is difficult. Don't make it tougher.
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You can have a broad popular democracy movement and have it end being taken over by the most vicious people and the result is you don't end up with free political systems or free economic systems, you end up with a handful of radicals controlling the country.
Donald Rumsfeld
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If you try to please everybody, somebody's not going to like it.
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Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
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