A Quote by Donald Rumsfeld

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

Donald Rumsfeld

Quote Topics

Beavers Dam Get Lawyers Like Middle Number Reduce Stream Up

Quote Author

Donald Rumsfeld
American - Politician
Born: July 9, 1932

Lawyers are like beavers: They get in the mainstream and dam it up.

John Naisbitt

Lawyers are like beavers: They get in the mainstream and damn it up.

John Naisbitt

He wondered what kind of blueprint beavers had for creating such a structure-or did they simply start aimlessly weaving stuff together until they had a dam? Did they even think about creating a dam? Maybe dams were simply accidents that resulted from their fooling around, much like the Army Corps of Engineers' accomplishments.

Patrick F. McManus

Once you get into this great stream of history you can't get out. You can drown. Or you can be pulled ashore by the tide. But it is awfully hard to get out when you are in the middle of the stream -- if it is intended that you stay there.

Richard M. Nixon

The 'stream' we call science always flows forward; sometimes reactionary beavers block its flow, but the stream is never defeated by this; it accumulates, gathers strength; its waters get over the barrage and continue on their course. The advancement of science is the advancement of God, for science is nothing but human intelligence, and human intelligence is the most valuable treasure God has bequeathed us.

Mehmet Murat Ildan

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

James Thurber

Beavers bred in captivity, inhabiting a concrete pool, will, if given the timber, fatuously go through all the motions of damming an ancestral stream.

Evelyn Waugh

"Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can." Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?" Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?" "Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam French fries." Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."... I started cracking up, and Thalia and Grover joined in, while Zoe just looked at us "I do not understand." "I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said. "And..." Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam T-shirt."

Rick Riordan

I'm going to reduce the size of the Cabinet, cut the number of ministers, reduce the size of the House of Commons, campaign for a European Parliament with 100 fewer members, halve the number of political advisers, and abolish a huge swathe of Labour's regional bureaucracies - and agencies and their offices in Brussels.

William Hague

Most lawyers aren't trial lawyers. Most lawyers, even trial lawyers, don't get their problems solved in a courtroom. We like to go to court. It seems heroic to go to court. We think we're the new, great advocates, better than anything we've seen on TV, and we come home exhilarated by having gone to court.

Janet Reno

I remember in high school thinking that I wanted to be a lawyer, and now I realize I saw that movie 'And Justice for All' when I was a kid and thought, 'That's what lawyers do, and I want to get up and yell and scream in the middle of a courtroom.'

Aaron Douglas

I think, in a career, you have several breaks that lead to a big break. Small things here and there all add up to cracking away at the dam. Then the dam breaks.

Mike Colter

You are free when you gain back yourself,” Madame Wu said. “You can be as free within these walls as you could be in the whole world. And how could you be free if, however far you wander, you still carry inside yourself the constant thought of him? See where you belong in the stream of life. Let it flow through you, cool and strong. Do not dam it with your two hands, lest he break the dam and so escape you. Let him go free, and you will be free.