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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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Don't divide the world into them and us.
Donald Rumsfeld
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And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
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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Oh my goodness gracious, what you can buy off the Internet in terms of overhead photography. A trained ape can know an awful lot of what is going on in this world, just by punching on his mouse, for a relatively modest cost.
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
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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When I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.
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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We don't seek empires.We're not imperialistic.
Donald Rumsfeld
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When starting at the bottom, be willing to learn from those at the top.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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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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
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[on Osama bin Laden] He is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning.
Donald Rumsfeld
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It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Don't blame the boss. He has enough problems.
Donald Rumsfeld