Donald Rumsfeld Thinking Quotations

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.

Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

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.

You're thinking of Eurpoe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.

Don't accept the post or stay unless you have an understanding with the President that you're free to tell him what you think "with the bark off" and you have the courage to do it.

What is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success.

I don't think we'll discover anything, myself. I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it. It is not like a treasure hunt where you just runaround looking everywhere hoping you find something. I just don't think that's going to happen. The inspectors didn't find anything, and I doubt that we will. What we will do is find the people who will tell us.

I think it's very useful for you folks (reporters) to try your damndest to be precise. And don't repeat things that are inaccurate if you can possibly avoid it. And when you see things that are inaccurate, knock them down -- because there's a bucket of it floating around.

General Boykin has requested that an inspector general review this matter. And I have indicated that if that's his request, I think it's appropriate.

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.

I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.

I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.

In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.

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.