Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Erik Prince
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman Erik Prince.
Last updated on December 22, 2024.
I'm not sure whether a person can really gauge the quality of his work by the enemies he's made, but if I somehow upset Hamas and the Taliban and Henry Waxman, I must have done something right.
The greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity is not al-Qaida, the Taliban, Iran or even China. It's an idea, the idea that we can spend our way out of our problems without tightening our belt and paring down the very bloated government.
Troops fighting for their lives should not have to ask a lawyer sitting in air conditioning 500 miles away for permission to drop a bomb.
Developing good investments in Africa is by and large the best for the people of Africa that have a job, that have electricity, that might have clean water, that might have those things that we in the West take horribly for granted.
In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.
Readiness is an oft-mentioned - but frequently ignored - necessity.
I never intended to be a defense contractor in the first place.
I know a lot of people in the aviation business, particularly ones who will fly to places where your boots get dirty when you get out of the airplane.
Afghanistan is an expensive disaster for America.
In Iraq, State Department civilians and U.S. soldiers have been operating in the same location in an active war zone. While the troops have been facing insurgents, the State Department civilians have been working to rebuild institutions and infrastructure. Blackwater's role in this war evolved from this unprecedented dynamic.
I'm a strong supporter of the military.
Since United States military operations in Iraq began in 2003, I have visited Iraq at least 15 times. But unlike politicians who visit, the question for me has never been why the U.S. got into Iraq. Instead, as the CEO of Blackwater, the urgent question was how the company I head could perform the duties asked of us by the U.S. State Department.
I'm a very free market guy.
Entrepreneurship made America great.
Our failed population-centric approach to Afghanistan has only led to missed opportunities, which is why Afghanistan depends on donors for 90% of government revenues. A smarter, trade-centric approach will boost Afghanistan's long-run viability by weaning it off donor welfare dependency.
When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.
It's amazing how many countries run their embassies as commercial outposts to promote businessmen from their country.
Every individual who has worked for Blackwater in Iraq has previously served in the U.S. military or as a police officer. Many were highly decorated. And from the beginning, these individuals have been bound by detailed contracts that ensure intensive government direction and control.
I've been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services.
The video game industry is constantly evolving. The sheer creativity matched with cutting-edge technologies gives me the comfort that innovation is alive and well in America.
I started a private equity fund and we invest in energy, mining, agriculture kind of things in Africa.
If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?
Bad things usually don't happen by themselves in Iraq.
I identify with Wyoming, I love the state of Wyoming, I love the people. It's a fantastic state - people that live in rugged conditions and who make their living doing things in the outdoors.
I think faith gives us a structure around which to try to organize our lives. I'm also a big believer, and very thankful that there's forgiveness.
There are some phone calls where it's not even worth wasting the electrons on.
I'm an American working for America. Anything we do is to support U.S. policy. You know the definition of a mercenary is a professional soldier that works in the pay of a foreign army. I'm an American working for America.
For people to mischaracterize my time or ownership of Blackwater as being some great financial bonanza, it was not. It was most definitely not.
I live in Loudoun County, and the counties surrounding Washington, D.C., have the highest per-capita income in the country. Not because they create wealth, but because they suck wealth from the rest of the country, and that system needs to be shaken up.
I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket.
Blackwater's work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked. In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.
In Joe Yorio you find a guy who's smarter at business than I am. I'm an entrepreneur and idea guy; he's a professional businessman.
When someone needs copper, or wood or an ag product, and they invest capital somewhere to make that happen, and people get jobs from that, and that good gets introduced to the world stage and it gets traded and moved, the whole world benefits.
The Janjaweed is a truly unfettered bully. No one has stood up to them. If they were met by a mobile quick reaction force of African Union soldiers, the Janjaweed would quickly learn their habits were not sustainable.
I'm a business guy just trying to make - provide great services to the customers that need us.
Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time.
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.
Any systems can always be made better.
We protect our banks, hospitals and airports with armed personnel; surely, we can do more to protect schools, which teach our nation's most valuable resource.
My father was a brilliant inventor and businessman. He taught me to appreciate the opportunities that America offers to innovators.
We need to privatize whenever possible.
I am a businessman, not a politician, but I am also a proud American who would never do anything against my country's national interest.
I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.
Let's stop trading freedom for the illusion of security.
Russia is basically Italy with nuclear weapons.
Limited government is best.
I would rather deal with the vagaries of investing in Africa than in figuring out what the hell else Washington is going to do to the entrepreneur next.
Very few people know someone who would voluntarily go into a war zone to protect a person he has never met. I know 1,000 of them, and I am proud that they are part of our team.
We now know that gun-free zones, though well intentioned, do not prevent attacks.
We're trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the postal service.
After 9/11, a few hundred CIA and Special Operations personnel, backed by airpower and Afghan militias, devastated Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. That effort has since turned into a conventional Pentagon nation-building exercise and gone backward.
Any time you employ thousands of people, some people do dumb things.
The people we helped in the field, they know what the legacy is. The 40% or so of Americans that really can't stand the name of Blackwater, that's fine, I'll never really win them over anyway. And I really don't care.
I'm a pretty stubborn guy. I don't quit too easily.
America is a great nation, but it cannot spend blood and treasure endlessly.
I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, but you don't have to be Catholic, you don't have to be a Christian to work for Blackwater.
Video games are an exciting medium. The creativity of design, the technology and the interaction represent the best of American innovation.
The failings in Afghanistan don't fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.
One of the real core competencies of Blackwater, or companies like Blackwater, is we can operate in difficult places without any outside support.
Our nation has endured and flourished because people of goodwill adapt and innovate productive solutions to our nation's problems - not because of top-down dictates.
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