Chuck Hagel quotes

Chuck Hagel is an American politician and former U.S. Secretary of Defense. A Vietnam War veteran, he also served as a U.S. Senator from Nebraska. He is recognized for his bipartisan approach and independent stance on foreign policy issues. Here are 36 of his quotes:

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

Chuck Hagel

If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business.

Chuck Hagel

If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety.

Chuck Hagel

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Chuck Hagel

We are the adult power in the world. It is because of the United States, our action or inaction, that there will be a resolution here.

Chuck Hagel

We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed.

Chuck Hagel

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam.

Chuck Hagel

Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn't come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.

Chuck Hagel

This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.

Chuck Hagel

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

Chuck Hagel

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

Chuck Hagel

No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record.

Chuck Hagel

Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.

Chuck Hagel

Foreign policy will require a strategic agility that, whenever possible, gets ahead of problems, strengthens U.S. security and alliances, and promotes American interests and credibility.

Chuck Hagel

I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.

Chuck Hagel

My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world, that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together, and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests.

Chuck Hagel

I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

Chuck Hagel

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

Chuck Hagel

Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

Chuck Hagel

Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.

Chuck Hagel

I am fully supportive of 'open service' and committed to LGBT military families.

Chuck Hagel

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

Chuck Hagel