Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Donald Rumsfeld

American Politician and Businessman who served as 13th Secretary of Defense

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence ... Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist."

"If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much."

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started"

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war"

"As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know."

"And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

"Amidst all the clutter, beyond all the obstacles, aside from all the static, are the goals set. Put your head down, do the best job possible, let the flak pass, and work towards those goals."

"As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns; the one we don't know we don't know."

"And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign."

"Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up."

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

"Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to "carry it off.""

"Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small."

"Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal."

"Don't automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn't considered key aspects of the issue."

"But no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

"Don't divide the world into "them" and "us." Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours."

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

"Don't blame the boss. He has enough problems."

"Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership."

"Don't be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it."

"Don't say "the White House wants." Buildings can't want."

"Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes."

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

"Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life."

"I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

"Everyone’s saying you can’t do anything until you can do everything, and in life I’ve never found that to be the case. To me, first you crawl, then you walk, then you run. And so let’s get on with it. Let’s stick something in the ground and not pretend that it’s perfect."

"Here in the Bush Administration, we're all grown-up enough to not let little things like Ivy League rivalries get in the way of work."

"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."

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

"I don't do quagmires."

"I didn't advocate invasion…I wasn't asked."

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing."

"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."

"I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?"

"I suppose the implication of that is the president and the vice president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs."

"If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't "sail" anyway. Send it back for further thought."

"I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny -- "The sky is falling." I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot -- one thing after another. From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been."

"If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right."

"I shouldn't get into ... this is diplomacy, and I don't do diplomacy."

"I think we ought to have a new rule: You can ask two questions, and then we can pick the one we want to answer."

"If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity."

"If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random."

"If in doubt, move decisions up to the President."

"If we know anything, it is that weakness is provocative."

"If you develop rules, never have more than ten."

"If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes."

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

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."