Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

There are two things nobody should ever have to watch being made, sausage and laws.

From where you sit, the White House may look as untidy as the inside of a stomach. As is said of the legislative process, sausage-making and policy-making shouldn't be seen close-up. Don't let that panic you. Things may be going better than they look from the inside.

Politics doesn't matter, policy does.

I know how to make sausage, and now that I've seen how laws are made, I'll stick with sausage.

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

Government is not an exact science.

Policy making is not as easy as slurping down cabbage soup.

Governing has always been hard.

I think politics often seems remote, and anything we can do to show more of the workings - how you make the sausage - is useful.

There's a lot of new subject matter to learn. You start slowly peeling the onion and start figuring out how the policy and the politics intersect.

In politics there's never a magic wand.

The issues are by some geometric number - 100 or 200 or 500 - times more complicated today than we appreciated them to be when Franklin Roosevelt was around.

The challenge has been, we make policy in the world of politics.

Good ideas are the backbone of good government.

I think there's a lot to learn from Rockefeller on how to pass legislation.

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

When you are President you have to get something done, and that often means compromise.

Nearly all legislation is the result of compromise.

Governments propose, and oppositions dispose.

If the debates had been public, no constitution would have ever been adopted.

In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

Governing is about selecting.

Politics is about explanations.

If we cannot keep secrets, it is impossible for our leaders to have the adequate information on which to base their policies.

We consistently allow politicians to get away with playing identity politics rather than demanding evidence of what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.