Donald Rumsfeld

One of your tasks is to separate the “personal” from the “substantive.” The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

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

Don’t do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that’s just a fact.

I have to keep law and order and it means that I have to kill my enemies before they kill me.

In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered; national traditions, differences in nation and culture are being erased.

We are not going to close anything… I also worked in the security services and know it is easiest to ban, and harder to find civilized solutions. Therefore, I’m going to urge all my colleagues to take this route, the route of security and law enforcement agencies using modern methods to combat offences, including terrorism, without restricting freedoms including on the Internet.

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.

As far as oligarchs who acquire sports team abroad, and invest money abroad, I wouldn’t treat this phenomenon as something bad.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.

Unfortunately, you can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place

The educational system was a highly predictable victim of the neoliberal reaction, guided by the maxim of ‘private affluence and public squalor’. Funding for public education has sharply declined. Tuition has exploded, leading to a plague of unpayable student debt.

I was at the Battle of Britain memorial yesterday. I was there out of respect for that amazing moment in British history. I was also thinking about my family, my mum and dad who were there at that time in London, and worked as air raid wardens during the Blitz, and I was thinking about that. It was a respectful ceremony, and I stood in respect throughout it. […] The issue is that we had a memorial for the Battle of Britain, I was there, I showed respect for it, and I’ll show respect in the proper way at all future events.

I am not an admirer or supporter of Putin’s foreign policy, or of Russian or anybody else’s expansion.- Jeremy Corbyn

Poland should be strong and prosperous and independent and play its proper role as a great nation in the heart of Europe.

When [Lenin] became the leader, he didn’t waste much time, and Trotsky helped him, in instituting a pretty repressive regime with the basic elements of Stalinism. They moved pretty quickly to dismantle most of the organs of popular power.

In Downing Street they called me ‘Boss’. Civil servants would always call me ‘Prime Minister’.

In Nixon’s administration, you get the consumer safety legislation (CPSC), safety and health regulations in the workplace (OSHA) and the EPA – the Environmental Protection Agency. Business didn’t like it, of course – they didn’t like the higher taxes, didn’t like the regulation.

Equality of the general rules of law and conduct…is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty.