I don't have the best track record with quotes.
PowerPoint makes us stupid.
Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn't happen. If that's the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.
I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies - I was Armed with Insight.
Iran is not a nation-state; it's a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.
Demonstrate to the world, there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine.
For the mission's sake, for our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles - carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.
In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.
The economy's always been the engine for our national security.
It's a lot of fun to fight.
Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
I like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.
I don't think the U.S. military is conservative. It's pragmatic.
No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys' table is because of their nuclear weapons program.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.
There's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.
The fundamental question I believe is, 'Is political Islam in our best interest?' If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?
Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.
It is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war.
Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.
The military can buy our diplomats some time.
I was a Marine for 41 years, and it wasn't long enough. We enjoy putting on that uniform.
Fight with a happy heart.
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief.
What is the one country in the Middle East that has not been attacked by ISIS? One. That is Iran. That is more than happenstance, I'm sure.
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
There's no way that that our military power will not erode if a robust American economic revival is not part of the cards.
Basically, Islamic State is a combined al Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah on steroids, destabilizing the region, dissolving borders/changing the political geography in the Mid-east, and hardening political positions that make Mid-east peace-building more remote by the day.
The U.S. military is not war weary. Our military draws strength from confronting our enemies when clear policy objectives are set and we are fully resourced for the fight.
We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don't know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?
I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don't buy it.
While victimhood in America is exalted, I don't think our veterans should join those ranks.
I'm on record that it didn't really traumatize me to do away with some people.
I've had some 'riotous excursions of the human spirit' alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it's time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way - they earned their stripes in combat.
The Corps is in good hands, and it's been a privilege to serve with the Leathernecks. Now it's time to go.
Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
I've always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and I do better with that than I do with torture.
I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.
What we achieved was a nuclear pause, not a nuclear halt.