88 Quotes by Robert M. Gates

Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.

Every time we have come to the end of a conflict, somehow we have persuaded ourselves that the nature of mankind and the nature of the world have changed on an enduring basis and so we have dismantle our military and intelligence capabilities. My hope is that as we wind down in Iraq and whatever the level of our commitment in Afghanistan, that we not forget the basic nature of humankind has not changed.

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

There will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy.

One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.

I consider myself a Republican.

And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades.

Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost.

No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.