Donald Rumsfeld

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

I don’t do quagmires.

Preserve the President’s options. He may need them.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

The way to do well is to do well.

I was never involved in arms trading. In the Russian Federation, arms trading is the prerogative of the state.

Leverage: don’t make deals without it!

While I love technology and social media, a text or a tweet can never replace the real value of conversation.

Do not spend too much time planning or trying to anticipate and solve problems before they happen. That is just another kind of excuse for procrastination. Until you start, you won’t know where the problems will occur. You won’t have the experience to solve them. Instead, get into action, and solve the problems as they arise.

Too many would-be executives are slaves of routine.

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

I’ve been making deals all my life.

I have no Napoleonic dream. I’m just hard-working and pragmatic.

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

I will build a motor car for the great multitude – constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. So low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.

We do not hire a man’s history, we hire the man.

Cutting wages is not the way to recovery. Raise wages and improve the product.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.