George P. Shultz Quotes

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  • Former United States Secretary Of State
  • born 1920
  • 39 quotes

George P. Shultz, Former United States Secretary Of State (born 1920), is quoted 39 times on QuoteForever. The subjects that come up most often are Political, People, Ideas and Gets.

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If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.

I like the life of ideas and applying ideas to action.

Obama seems to want to do something to damage rich people.

He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.

He who walks in the middle of the roads gets hit from both sides.

I want my grandchildren to be proud of me. That's the main thing.

You've got to dream a little bit if you're going to get somewhere.

The civilized world has a common stake in defeating the terrorists.

It was an attempt to stick the Congress's finger in King Hussein's eye.

The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it.

Before you get mugged by reality, take out an insurance policy. It's the Reagan way.

You don't get gushers of revenue by raising tax rates. You get it through expansion.

The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost.

Oh, you know. I am secretary of state. My trips aren't successful. I just talk to people.

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

Open political and economic systems have been gaining ground and there's a good reason for it. They work better.

If you ask me what am I, I might say 'I am a Californian,' and if George Bush were here, he would say 'I am a Texan.'

Between 1980 and 1990, the number of countries that were classified as 'free' or 'mostly free' increased by about 50%.

There is no prospect that the United States will say to Israel, 'You do such and such and we'll not support you in your security.

Strong growth means increased use of energy at a pace that can strain the capacity to supply what is needed at a reasonable price.

There is no prospect that the United States will say to Israel, 'You do such and such and we'll not support you in your security.'

If somebody had made that [deal] to me when I was a businessman, I would have said he proposed to give me the sleeves from his vest.

I don't know how you define 'neoconservatism,' but I think it's associated with trying to spread open political systems and democracy.

A strong foundation exists for immediate military action against Saddam Hussein and for a multilateral effort to rebuild Iraq after he is gone.

Increasingly, the state system has been eroding. Terrorists have exploited this weakness by burrowing into the state system in order to attack it.

I think the idea that you would do everything you can to prevent what is coming at you by way of something very disruptive - a 9/11 - it's a no-brainer.

The 1986 tax act is sort of the unsung hero of the very good economic times we had for a long time. Of course, politics gums it all up again and preferences get put in.

Terrorism is not a matter that can be left to law enforcement, with its deliberative process, built-in delays, and safeguards that may let the prisoner go free on procedural grounds.

What we want is scientists who don't become part of the policy discussion: All they do is produce science. If someone becomes an advocate, then I won't pay as much attention to their science.

I've always tried to live in the future and think about things and how to make things better. If you have great-grandchildren around, and their pictures are looking at you, well, that's the future.

Nothing ever gets settled in this town. a seething debating society in which the debate never stops, in which people never give up, including me. And so that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

I learned in business that you had to be very careful when you told somebody that's working for you to do something, because the chances were very high he'd do it. In government, you don't have to worry about that.

World Affairs Councils are great organizations. They help keep people throughout our country alive to important developments in world affairs and underscore that, in the country, we stay engaged and we are part of the world.

The source of all the energy is the sun. The big challenge is, how do you use all of that energy? Solar power has to fascinate you. There have been strides to get the costs down, and if this will work, you have to get costs down so it is competitive with fossil fuels.

Nothing ever gets settled in this town (Washington). It's not like running a company or even a university. It's a seething debating society, in which the debate never stops; in which people never give up, including me, and that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

We have struggled with terrorism for a long time. In the Reagan administration, I was a hawk on the subject. I said terrorism is a big problem, a different problem, and we have to take forceful action against it. Fortunately, Ronald Reagan agreed with me, but not many others did.

The armed forces are paying a lot more attention to the use of energy. The Air Force has realized that the paint on planes is heavy, so there are going to be a lot more silver planes, or planes painted in a less heavy way, so that you are using less fuel to get from point A to point B.

My experience is that if the military didn't want to use force and was confronted with a president that did, the military would come back with what I would call the 'bomb Moscow' scenario. They would say it had to be done with conditions that were so extreme, you obviously wouldn't do it.

Ideas matter a lot, the underlying ideas that stand behind policies. When you don't have ideas, your policies are flip-flopping all over the place. When you do have ideas, you have more consistency. And when you have the right ideas - then you can get somewhere (reagan had the right ideas).

George P. Shultz is quoted on

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