George P. Shultz

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.'”

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

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

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

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

“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.'”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”