George P. Shultz famous quotes

04-17-2025

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

#Sports #Talking #Lost
Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.
-- George P. Shultz

#Shadow #Tables #Negotiation
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Giving #Vests #Made
Before you get mugged by reality, take out an insurance policy. It's the Reagan way.
-- George P. Shultz

#Reality #Way #Policy
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Running #Giving Up #People
If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.
-- George P. Shultz

#Political #Failing #Bigs
You don't get gushers of revenue by raising tax rates. You get it through expansion.
-- George P. Shultz

#Expansion #Taxes #Rate
You've got to dream a little bit if you're going to get somewhere.
-- George P. Shultz

#Dream #Littles
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Thinking #Ideas #Way
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Military #President #Use
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Law #Enforcement #Delay
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Long #Different #Hawks
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Country #Organization #People
He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.
-- George P. Shultz

#Travel #Sides #Middle
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Israel #Support #United States
The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it.
-- George P. Shultz

#Secrecy #Higher #Classification
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and a willingness to act in its defense.
-- George P. Shultz

#Defense #Vigilance #Price Of Freedom
It was an attempt to stick the Congress's finger in King Hussein's eye.
-- George P. Shultz

#Kings #Eye #Aggravation
Between 1980 and 1990, the number of countries that were classified as 'free' or 'mostly free' increased by about 50%.
-- George P. Shultz

#Country #Numbers
I don't know how you define 'neoconservatism,' but I think it's associated with trying to spread open political systems and democracy.
-- George P. Shultz

#Thinking #Political #Democracy
Increasingly, the state system has been eroding. Terrorists have exploited this weakness by burrowing into the state system in order to attack it.
-- George P. Shultz

#Order #Weakness #States
Obama seems to want to do something to damage rich people.
-- George P. Shultz

#People #Want #Damage
Oh, you know. I am secretary of state. My trips aren't successful. I just talk to people.
-- George P. Shultz

#Successful #People #States
Open political and economic systems have been gaining ground and there's a good reason for it. They work better.
-- George P. Shultz

#Political #Reason #Economic
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.
-- George P. Shultz

#Government #Worry #Political
The civilized world has a common stake in defeating the terrorists.
-- George P. Shultz

#World #Common #Stakes

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