Robert McNamara Quotes

Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

It's not just politicians. Any spokesman for a vested interest is well schooled in how to say what it is they wish to say, which may bear no relation at all to what you've asked them.

What I do, basically, is look at things from different angles. That is what I do on stage comedically, and that is what I do in art. I was always fascinated by the structure of things, why things work this way and not that way. So I like to see how things behave if you change the point of view.

You have to think a little smarter, be proactive, not reactive.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

No matter what stage of life you are graduating from or entering, learning how to build and state your case is something every person in the world should know how to do.

Exceptional leaders don't impart just vision, rather they cultivate the emergence of vision.

When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realised the wisdom of strategy.

If your enemy offers you two targets, strike at a third.

It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.

Do you come to a philosopher as to a cunning man, to learn something by magic or witchcraft, beyond what can be known by common prudence and discretion?

If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.

One may outwit another, but not all the others.

[My father] advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes and try to think of new problems to solve. I took his advice very seriously and have been glad ever since that he did.

One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.

With thought, all problems can be resolved.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.

Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.

Just providing information about how bad things are, or the statistics and data on incarceration by themselves, does lead to more depression and resignation and is not empowering. The information has to be presented in a way that's linked to the piece about encouraging students to think critically and creatively about how they might respond to injustice, and how young people have responded to injustice in the past.

Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, when they seem going they come: diplomats, women, and crabs.