Paul Wolfowitz famous quotes

There's a lot of money to pay for this ... the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years...We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Country #War #Years

I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Thinking #People #Support

You cant win if youre chasing the wrong problem.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Winning #Problem #Chasing

History is just littered with problems that were solved that were supposed to be impossible.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Impossible #Problem

For the private sector to flourish, special privilege must give way to equal opportunity and equal risk for all.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Opportunity #Giving #Risk

For one thing I tend not to see myself in various moulds that people fit me into.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#People #Fit #Mould

That sense of what happened in Europe in World War II has shaped a lot of my views.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Europe #Views

I mean, we're going to probably debate the Iraq war for at least as long as I'm alive.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Mean #Iraq

Look, I think the notion that theres a dogma or doctrine of foreign policy that gives you a textbook recipe for how to react to all situations is really nonsense.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Thinking #Giving #Textbooks

I told my father I had to try political science for a year. He thought I was throwing my life away.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Father #Years #Political

I think, in the longer view of things, there is a very powerful pull in the direction of participatory government.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Powerful #Thinking #Views

One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Thinking #Political

It's a very bad thing when people exterminate other people, and people persecute minorities.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#People #Minorities

I'm constantly asking for alternative views on most things that come to me.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Views #Asking #Alternatives

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#People #Want #Six

I've met quite a few dictators up close and personal in my life.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Dictator #Mets

The use of force to liberate people is very different from the use of force to suppress or control them, or even to defeat them.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#People #Use #Different

Sometimes corruption is slowed by shedding light into what was previously shadowed.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Light #Sometimes #Corruption

I think it's a mistake to rely too much on any one economic factor. It's why investors try to spread their portfolio round.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Mistake #Thinking #Trying

Poles understand perhaps better than anyone the consequences of making toothless warnings to brutal tyrants and terrorist regimes.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Tyrants #Warning #Regimes

The absence of Saddam is a huge weight off the Arab world.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Weight #World #Absence

It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Army #Iraq

Iraq has no history of ethnic conflict.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Iraq #Conflict

I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Thinking #Iraq #Want

Public action should seek to expand the set of opportunities of those who have the least voice and fewest resources and capabilities.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Opportunity #Voice #Action

Firing employees, that's unfortunately a part of doing business.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Employee

The most striking thing is that even before Osama bin Laden was killed, he seemed largely irrelevant to the Arab Spring,
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Spring #Osama Bin Laden #Irrelevant

I don't know of a single instance of these Arab freedom fighters holding up pictures of bin Laden. I know many instances of them displaying American flags in Benghazi or painting 'Facebook' on their foreheads in Cairo. The idea of freedom . . . is absolutely contradictory to what bin Laden stood for, which was . . . taking Muslims back to some medieval theocracy and encouraging people to die not for freedom but to go to paradise and to kill innocent people along the way. The contrast is really striking.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Ideas #People #Flags

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Iraq #Democracy

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Stupid #Government #Iraq

The American people are pretty impressive in their ability to keep after something if they think it is doable,
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Thinking #People #Impressive

There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post- Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#War #Army #Iraq

Jobs are a priority for every country. Doing more to improve regulation and help entrepreneurs is the key to creating jobs - and more growth.
-- Paul Wolfowitz

#Country #Jobs #Creating