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Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others. Be sure the staff is working on what you move to them from the President, or the President will be reacting, not leading.

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
Move
Control
Sure
Working
Reacting
President
Staff
Moving
Leading
Others
Priorities
Time
Boxes

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

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Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Leave the President's family business to him. You will have plenty to do without trying to manage the First Family. They are likely to do fine without your help.
Donald Rumsfeld
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I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.
Donald Rumsfeld
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We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
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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It is very difficult to spend federal (the taxpayers') dollars so that the intended result is achieved.
Donald Rumsfeld
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It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
Donald Rumsfeld
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First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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
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Do you have any regrets? Of course I do.
Donald Rumsfeld
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We do have a saying in America: if you're in a hole, stop digging ..... erm, I'm not sure I should have said that.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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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Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
Donald Rumsfeld
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You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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
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Every country should be tired of going to war. War is a terrible thing. If I had been in Congress, as much as I would be inclined naturally to be supportive of a president, any president, I would have voted no, had the issue come to a vote.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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If you develop rules, never have more than ten.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week.
Donald Rumsfeld