Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Are people angry with me? Sure, anything you do in your life, people are going to be angry at you.

The most important thing you need to know about the Pentagon is that it is not in charge of today's wars but rather tomorrow's wars.

In strife who inquires whether stratagem or courage was used?

Every time you write anything, at least half your readers are going to disagree with you. A big part of sports writing is how you respond to that tension.

Not many people agree with what I do.

Writers should provoke disagreement.

The whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.

I don't think it's useful for somebody to argue with reviews.

I have a very firm limitation in mind, but I don’t think the Joint Chiefs do. I know they don’t.

I've been a big admirer of Tony Dungy, and I'm sure a lot of people are, but he unfairly judged me, and that was disappointing to me.

Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?

And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.

If you don't like being attacked for your point of view, you shouldn't be in politics in the first place.

I think I was unprepared for war.

Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses All bent upon killing, because their "of courses" Are not quite the same.

I'd like to be clear that a number of people find me intolerable, and they don't hesitate to say so - which they and I cherish.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war. Only great and general battles can produce great results. Blood is the price of victory.

War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.

In his fairy dreams of war [Thaddeus] always made conquest the sure end of his battles.

One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself; if he is ignorant what his adversary is about?

War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.

Therefore a victorious army first wins and then seeks battle; a defeated army first battles and then seeks victory.

We are the only nation in the world that waits till we get into a war before we start getting ready for it.

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.