I don’t do quagmires.
In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.
It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
With the press there is no ‘off the record’.
You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.
When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don’t eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.
True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.
Sometimes if I see negative things it really doesn’t faze me, because you’ve got to be tough and you’ve got to be you.
None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.
He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.
The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.
What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.
When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while you don’t do things right once in a while you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Patience – the gift of being able to see past the emotion.
The memory of a day like today reminds me to hold the ones I love that much tighter, that much longer… Take that much more time to be present and to feel the blessing of another day…
All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. It spoils Health, dismounts the Mind, and unmans Men: It reveals Secrets, is Quarrelsome, Lascivious, Impudent, Dangerous and Mad. In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.
