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When business accepts help from the government, it can be like going to bed with a hippopotamus. It's nice and warm for the moment, but then your bedmate rolls over and crushes you.

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
Money
Warm
Government
Accepting
Going
Nice
Hippopotamus
Like
Help
Crushes
Moment
Rolls
Business
Accepts
Helping
Crush
Moments
Bed

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

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There are a lot of things that are said by people in the military, or civilian life, or in the Congress, or in the Executive Branch, that are their views. And that's the way we live. We're a free people. And that's the wonderful thing about our country.
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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.
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Imagine, a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000. It's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
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If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity.
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Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
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I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.
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Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned it was - by a taxpayer.
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Don't automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn't considered key aspects of the issue.
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Napoleon was asked, Who do you consider to be the greatest generals? He responded saying, The victors.
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[on Osama bin Laden] He is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.
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Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here.
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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.
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If you can't solve a problem, make it bigger.
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Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.
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It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.
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A large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves looking for the bad folks.
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The reality is that [Barack] Obama has some 15 countries in the current Libya coalition. President Bush put together close to 50 countries for the Afghan coalition, some 40 countries for the Iraqi coalition, more than 90 countries for the Proliferation Security Initiative and over 90 countries in the Global War on Terror.
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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.
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When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later.
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There are things that we know, and there are things that we don't know. Then there are the things that we don't even know that we don't know. Those are the things that are the hardest.
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