Robert Gates quotes - page 2

Robert Gates is an American statesman and intelligence analyst who served as Director of the CIA and U.S. Secretary of Defense. His career spanned several presidential administrations, making significant contributions to national security and foreign policy. He is recognized for his pragmatic leadership and bipartisan approach in government service. Here are 37 of his quotes:

I consider myself a Republican.

Robert Gates

I have always voted for who I believed was the best person.

Robert Gates

I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State.

Robert Gates

I'm a big advocate of drones.

Robert Gates

One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries.

Robert Gates

Some people have said, in so many words, that I'm kind of wooly-headed in believing that the Iranians would see not having nuclear weapons as more in their security interest than not.

Robert Gates

No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on.

Robert Gates

I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.

Robert Gates

Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'

Robert Gates

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

Robert Gates