Edmund Burke Quotes

Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before ... In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.

I had arrived years ago in Paris and just wanted to be famous, fast. When you're pretentious like that, and you think you've planned everything perfectly, it's then that everything goes in the opposite way.

It turned out that the country was helpless in the face of a new reality.

He that's secure is not safe.

The biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to.

It may be that the very qualities that help people get ahead are the ones that make them ill-suited for managing crises. It's hard to prepare for the worst when you think you're the best.

There is nothing more dangerous than security.

This experience actually means the very opposite: the largest military power was unable to stop such a sensitive attack and will be unable to rule out such a possibility in the future. Precisely this is the background to the United States' military interventions.

If a nation's security is only as strong as its weakest link, then America may be in serious trouble. Hawaii may be our weakest link and could have a serious impact on our nation's immigration policy.

During the times of peace and prosperity a leader becomes careless and unmindful of the future

Sometimes we have to think very clearly about the unthinkable because the unthinkable sometimes happens.

No wall exists, however thick, that artillery cannot destroy.

The Titanic was a great ship, but is was captained by one depicted as being arrogant, and warnings of an iceberg were not heeded. America is like that great ship. Unfortunately, at the helm may be a proud captain. And black people could become the iceberg that causes the sinking of this great ship called the United States of America.

There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

Somebody's screwed up, and it should be evident to everybody that somebody screwed up…. We should change course. The current course is taking us over Niagara Falls.

I have a great risk of meeting a fool at home, but the candidate who travels cannot escape him.

We are much safer in the United States, but not yet safe.

A security program where everything that is technical possible is done, undermines trust and in the long run produces less security.

There's no such thing as a foolproof system. That idea fails to take into account the creativity of fools.

A back door is a nonstarter. It means we are all not safe... I don't support a back door for any government, ever.

If the leaks continue, we are strong as our weakest link. And I'll say it a little differently in a pun. We're strong as our weakest leak.

In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.

What compelled me about the story of Chernobyl more than anything else was something very universal. Yes, Chernobyl happened because in many ways, the Soviet system was deeply corrupt and evil, but the Soviet system did not arrive to us from some other planet. It was devised by humans.

They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.

Carelessness about our security is dangerous, carelessness about our freedom is also dangerous.