Robert M. Gates Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

“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.”

“Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries.”

“The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together.”