Top 63 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Officers

I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner.

Trump wants to be an autocrat, he does want to be a Vladimir Putin-style ruler. His chief strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, is a follower of Alexander Dugin. Dugin believes liberal democracy should be destroyed and it should be destroyed from the right, and an alliance of autocracy should form between the United States, Europe and Russia, in order to confront Islam.

Never complain. When I did, my mother said that if I didn’t like my life, I could just give up and die. She reminded me that when I was inside her, I told her that I wanted to be born, so she delivered me, breastfed me and changed my diapers. She said that I had to be brave.

The German army is a machine, and machines can be broken!

Believe that you can whip the enemy, and you have won half the battle.

The problem is that I don't think the American people realize how much of our intelligence is actually derived from our partners. If our partners cannot feel or do not trust that our president will not divulge that information to, I mean, goodness gracious, the Russians in this case, then that could create real problems for us going forward.

Either I will come back after hoisting the Tricolor, or I will come back wrapped in it, but I will be back for sure.

My God, what have we done?

Met you as a stranger Took you as a friend Hope we meet in Heaven Where friendship never ends

I walk around feeling a sort of existential guilt all the time; and honestly for me this house is a way of feeling less guilty about the universe. - Julia Louis

We must remain mindful of the potential impact of over-correcting the authorizations of the intelligence community.

It is clear that the Trump administration doesn't have the same reticence that the Obama administration did in terms of putting more boots on the ground, especially conventional troops, as opposed to special operations troops.

Most ISIS members are irreconcilable. Once they've bitten that bug, that cultish bug, they would prefer to die. They're going to be given the opportunity, no one's going to get out alive from Iraq and Syria now. They make sure everyone's a suicide bomber now.

Trump is very skillful at identifying - even if he can't quite get it clear, or precisely describe it - but that's what he wants to do, is always have something to use against people, even if it's distorted.

When we use the word domestic [terrorism], we discount its actual impact as political terrorism, which is, of course, political violence meant to impact an audience outside of the immediate victims.

I have been placed under surveillance, and I can't take a step without it being known to the Polish minister of internal affairs.

The ghost caliphate will be a virtual organization; it'll be decentralised, with no leadership, and it will just encourage people to keep acting now that the caliphate's gone, that individuals should go do self-starting jihad. Get a gun, get an improvised weapon, take your car, and carry out the jihad.

Obviously, what's happening in China right now is crucial, in the party congress, which as someone said has anointed a new emperor of China in President Xi. So there's the rise of China, and their active involvement in the United States internally in our business and financial realms. That certainly bears watching.

I have sort of a visceral aversion to the prominence of the either active duty, in the case of General McMaster, or retired general officers filling political, civilian positions.

The president sets the tone. He creates the atmosphere, and that can be enlightened, progressive, or it can be intimidating, depending on what the president's agenda is. I think the other dimension of this that I worry about is impacts overseas with friends and allies, many of whom are very, very concerned about America's position in the world and whether or not it's going to continue its leadership, which has been the prevalent condition since World War II.

I think, as a professional courtesy, when the president asks you to dinner, you go.

ISIS rules Muslim apostates every day and then beheads them. Poorly educated guys get Islam for Dummies, petty criminals who think they're suddenly changing their lives because they see the light. The best way to fight them is to show them they don't know Islam at all, and that they are in fact working for the other side.

There's only two classes of people: terrorists and non-terrorists. Terrorists come in every flavour: there are Buddhist terrorists right now killing Rohingya in Burma! Buddhists! They're not allowed to kill bugs.

I desire my children to be educated south of the Mason Dixon line and always to retain right of domicile in the Confederate States.

We had a general awareness, for example, of Russian use of social media - Facebook ads, use of Twitter, fake news implants - we had a general understanding of that. But now, as time has elapsed and time has gone on, I've certainly learned a lot more about the depth and breadth of what the Russians were about.

Trump doesn't understand the counterintelligence process. Take, for example, Carter Page. He's been appearing on television and acting as though the U.S. intelligence community monitoring his activities in Russia and suspicions that he may have been in league with Russian intelligence is an affront.

We have an army far better adapted to attack than to defend. Let us fight at advantage before we are forced to fight at disadvantage.

I think Trump's presidency represents a completely different model than what we're used to. And I think to your point, yes, he is a great communicator, you know? He uses Twitter to great effect. I just wish he could stick more to the truth, because it's a very effective way of communicating directly with the American people.

There's nobody that wants the president to be successful more than I.

Without a huge shock, the sleepy-head, ignorant Japanese will never wake up.

I don't think the intelligence community itself institutionally is losing its focus; it will continue to do its job; continue to be vigilant on all issues that are besetting us. I think the greater danger is just the preoccupation of the policy community, and how much attention they pay to what the intelligence community is telling them.

You can`t differentiate between an Islamic terrorist and a Christian terrorist. Or a politically motivated terrorist who`s anti-abortion or someone who may have differing views.

Trump will not resign. But the allegations that are arrayed right now! The corruption is in our face. He changed his trust, supposed to have been a blind trust, which it was not, he changed it so that he could withdraw profits personally at any time from facilities that are being paid by the United States. It's corrupt.

The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.

There`s actually some fluidity here in the United States. Using local intelligence against [terrorism].But you still have to infiltrate these groups. You still have to collect intelligence as you see fit. And they are organized. They are very well organized in the anti-abortion movement. Ideologically, they`re almost the same. And that`s where we see these spurts of violence.

Arson is the single most fundamental form of terrorism.It`s the simplest terrorist tactic.

Men should never give up. I never do. I would hate to lose.

I shall strive to inculculate in my men the spirit of the chase.

The two most capable nation state adversaries in the cyber domain are clearly Russia and, of course, China. And I do think Russia poses a huge threat in the way they have used the cyber domain. That, to me, by the way, is the big issue here, is Russian interference in our political process, in our election process. And that is an egregious act by them. And they will continue to do that and I think more aggressively than they have in the past. And I think it's something Americans, all American citizens need to be aware of.

The FBI is unique in that it straddles both law enforcement and counterintelligence.

I've expressed concern about the assaults on our institutions, both from external sources - meaning the Russians - and internal sources. And I think this will be a real test of the resilience of our system and its pillars.

Law enforcement does counter political extremism here in the United States in the exact same way that they do political extremists who are infiltrated into the United States, who may come from a religious motivation, as we saw overseas in Europe. But the same methodologies have to be used.

The Russians succeeded, I believe, beyond their wildest expectations. Their first objective in the election was to sow discontent, discord, and disruption in our political life, and they have succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They have accelerated, amplified the polarization and the divisiveness in this country and they've undermined our democratic system. They wanted to create doubt in the minds of the public about our government and about our system; and they succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They've been emboldened and they will continue to do this.

In Russia, they say I'm a Pole, in Poland they call me Russian.

We have lots of challenges around the world, and I have no doubt the intelligence community will continue to watch them, monitor them, and report on them. The issue is, with all of our other distractions here in Washington, particularly, will the appropriate attention be paid to each one of these issues?

President Trump has the advantage of being surrounded by an excellent cadre of advisors. Kim Jong-un doesn't have any advisors that are going to give him objective counsel. He's surrounded by medal-bedecked sycophants, who dutifully follow him around like puppy dogs with their notebooks open, ascribing his every utterance, and pushing back against the great leader is not a way to get ahead.

Life is not fair and people are not equal.

ISIS is going to devolve from physical political emirate, into what Al Qaeda was, which is a covert organization which will go completely underground. But to communicate and to keep propagating their propaganda, after everyone is dead, all their fanboys and whatever surviving leadership that has been operating outside the war or operates in Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, they will form what we call a "ghost caliphate."

We're talking about nuclear war with North Korea. We're talking about Russia. Does it feel like the world has shifted? Are we all just in Donald Trump's reality show now?

One must always be civic-minded.

Some of you expressed surprise that I showed up-so many emails to read!

If we - particularly, if we peremptorily attack North Korea - that without deliberation, that North Korea will reflexively unleash all the rocketry and artillery - which they're pretty good at, by the way - on Seoul, and do as they vowed many times, to convert Seoul into a sea of fire. So, if we do something like this, this will have cataclysmic results.

People cannot live completely by themselves.

There is no difference between an ISIS gunman and an American gunman that goes into a mosque, or the gunman Baruch Goldstein who went into the mosque in Bethlehem and killed 29 guys about fifteen years ago. Goldstein took his service weapon and tried to kill everybody in the mosque. He shot over a hundred people. There's no monopoly on terrorism. Terrorism experts know this and we live according to that.

I am a citizen of the Soviet Union and I think sharp measures need to be taken against anti-Soviet forces that are trying to make their way into the leadership. In addition, it is vitally important to maintain the lines of communication with Germany through Poland.

What I said was, ‘the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails.’ I stand by that.

First Russians objective was - as I said earlier - to sow discord, discontent, disruption. And their next objective was - because of the very strong personal animus that Putin himself had for both Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton - and he particularly held her responsible for what he felt was an attempted color revolution in 2011 to attempt to overturn him. So, he had very strong hatred - personal hatred - towards her, and that kind of led him to - if I'm opposed to her, who am I going to favor?

Some dreams are best not to wake up from.

Now you have Donald Trump ready to execute policy on the basis that the Muslims are the problem, not ISIS. Oh Jesus, it's a circular firing squad.

When I visited North Korea in November 2014, is that Kim Jong-un is not merely the head of state of the DPRK - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea - he's also their deity. So, when you insult him as the head of state, you're also insulting the deity, which of course the regime plays to a fare-thee-well to the domestic audience there.