Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The Taliban is resilient.
I'm not big on commissions.
I don't engage in hypotheticals.
Al Qaeda still remains a threat.
If you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist.
Frankly, my fundamental beliefs have not changed.
I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt.
My whole life has been dedicated to public service.
Iran is isolating itself from the rest of the world.
I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened.
The last thing I want to do is to make the mistakes of the past.
I don't think I should penalize people who were doing their duty.
The United States is going to defend itself under any circumstances.
The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.
Unfortunately these days, there is a hell of a lot that keeps me awake.
The United States was attacked on 9/11/12, and we know who attacked us.
The United States will do whatever we have to do to protect our forces.
You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.
Go forward, knowing that you are greater than the challenges of your time.
The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack.
There's no question that the main location of Al Qaida is in tribal areas of Pakistan.
There's no question that the main location of al Qaeda is in tribal areas of Pakistan.
I suddenly realized at the CIA that I had to make life-and-death decisions about people.
Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.
My father said I was perfectly suited for Washington because I've always worked around nuts.
Well, the United States is a Pacific power. And we have always had a presence in the Pacific.
I know that young people sometimes, caught up in the moment, make some very foolish decisions.
I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation.
I think a quality that a national security adviser must have is the ability to set up procedures.
When you're smaller and leaner, you're not going to have that large a presence throughout the world.
I don't usually comment on columnists' ideas of what I'm thinking. That's a dangerous game to get into.
The political and substantive reality is that the agenda has to change. I don't think they have any choice.
Russians understand strength, and if they feel that their opponents are weak, they will take advantage of it.
Sexual assault has no place in the military. It is a violation of everything that the US military stands for.
The United States has to be a leader in the world, because the problem is: If we are not leading, nobody else will.
When you cut a half-a-trillion dollars from the defense budget, it affects almost every area in the defense budget.
These days, it takes only seconds - seconds - for a picture, a photo, to suddenly become an international headline.
Throughout the 40 years I've been in Washington, I've always worked hard, particularly with regards to the budget issues.
Clearly, Russia has lied to the world about what's going on in Ukraine. They have clearly violated the cease-fire agreements.
The United States has to have the capability to deal with more than one enemy at one time and be able to confront them and win.
I think the primary message to the world is that the United States is going to remain the strongest military power in the world.
If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents.
In this century, the 21st century, the U.S. recognizes our prosperity and our security depends even more on the Asia-Pacific region.
You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.
Companies should be able to share specific threat information with the government without the prospect of lawsuits hanging over their head.
The fundamental premise is that neither the United States or the international community is going to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
Caution is an important quality in a leader, but it has to be caution followed by decision. Caution followed by ambivalence can be a weakness.
An aggressor nation or extremist group could gain control of critical switches and derail passenger trains, or trains loaded with lethal chemicals.
Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.
Obama really does recognize the threats that are out there; I think he understands the world. He understands the role of America in that troubled world.