Donald Rumsfeld Trying Quotations

When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

If you try to please everybody, somebody's not going to like it.

Leave the President's family business to him. You will have plenty to do without trying to manage the First Family. They are likely to do fine without your help.

What they're doing is they're trying to pretend that they're functioning well, leave the impression that people should give them money, their financiers, leave the impression that they're a viable organization and that they should get recruits, and just generally give encouragement to their people,

What we will be doing at NATO is trying to help people connect the dots before something happens rather than afterwards.

know what they're doing. They're focusing on public opinion in the United States. They're trying to do things that are dramatic and affect that.

Well, I suppose that what they're trying to do is to capture press attention, obviously, and they've succeeded.

When you're skiing, if you're not falling you're not trying.

I think it's very useful for you folks (reporters) to try your damndest to be precise. And don't repeat things that are inaccurate if you can possibly avoid it. And when you see things that are inaccurate, knock them down -- because there's a bucket of it floating around.

I cannot give any assurances. I'm not in that business. I haven't been, and I don't intend to get into it. People who try to make predictions about things or assurances often find they're wrong.

We have to expect that global terrorist networks that we know are trying to get these weapons will in fact be successful at some time in the future,

They've got a peaceful way to change that government -- through the constitution, through the elections. These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world.

And by the same token, we've got to keep our eye on the ball, and the ball is trying to protect the American people from additional terrorist attacks and try to track down the folks that are planning threats against our country, here and abroad.