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" One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.' "

Robert M. Gates

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" There's a lot of books out there about how you lead change in business, but I've certainly not seen any... on how you do that in public institutions. "

Robert M. Gates

" If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience. "

Robert M. Gates

" I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written. "

Robert M. Gates

" Defense is not like other discretionary spending. "

Robert M. Gates

" When I was the director of Central Intelligence in the early '90s, I tried to get the Air Force to partner with us in building drones. And they didn't want to, because they had no pilots. "

Robert M. Gates

" Things have gotten so nasty in Washington. "

Robert M. Gates

" A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book. "

Robert M. Gates

" I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have always voted for who I believed was the best person. "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership. "

Robert M. Gates

" Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done. "

Robert M. Gates

" I had no concerns - I had no reason to have concerns based on what was available to me about North's contacts with the private sector people, but I didn't think a CIA person should do it. "

Robert M. Gates

" If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.' "

Robert M. Gates

" I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. "

Robert M. Gates

" I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming. "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel. "

Robert M. Gates

" I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful. "

Robert M. Gates

" I'm a big advocate of drones. "

Robert M. Gates

" Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive. "

Robert M. Gates

" I consider myself a Republican. "

Robert M. Gates

" I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time. "

Robert M. Gates

" I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.' "

Robert M. Gates

" I mean, when you get down to very low numbers of nuclear weapons, and you contemplate going to zero, how do you deal with the reality of that technology being available to almost any country that seeks to pursue it? And what conditions do you put in place? "

Robert M. Gates

" If Poindexter made a comment to me like that, it would have been in the context of once the authorized program is approved there would be no point in having any of these private benefactors any longer. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have instincts. "

Robert M. Gates

" There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility. "

Robert M. Gates

" You know, if I were an - if I were a Taliban, I'd say, 'What did al-Qaida ever do for me except get me kicked out of Afghanistan?' "

Robert M. Gates

" No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on. "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, what I've said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear - weapons of mass destruction. "

Robert M. Gates