Robert M. Gates Quotes

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Robert M. Gates

Profession : Politician

Birth : September 25, 1943

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

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

Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.

Robert M. Gates

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.

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

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 consider myself a Republican.

Robert M. Gates

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Robert M. Gates

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

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

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

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

I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service, not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free, that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community.

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

I had no difficulty as Secretary of Defense moving from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.

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

Some people have said, in so many words, that I'm kind of wooly-headed in believing that the Iranians would see not having nuclear weapons as more in their security interest than not.

Robert M. Gates