Robert McNamara quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Robert McNamara on Wise Famous Quotes.

If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals.

That's one of the major lessons: no president should ever take this nation to war without full public debate in the Congress and/or in the public.

One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible action.

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.

Let's go in, let's totally destroy Cuba.

I like to run down to the beach and have a little swim in the nude in the morning.

Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis, to contemplation.

Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!

To this day we seem to act in the world as though we know what's right for everybody.

It is true that at the time [1962] we had a strategic nuclear force of approximately five thousand warheads compared to the Soviet's three hundred.

I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do to do good?

Belief and seeing are both often wrong,

It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.

Brains are like hearts - they go where they are appreciated.

I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous

Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.

Measure what is important, don't make important what you can measure

The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

A computer does not substitute for judgment any more than a pencil substitutes for literacy. But writing without a pencil is no particular advantage.

The war in Vietnam is going well and will succeed.

We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

Poor planning or poor execution of plans is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality.

There are many ways to make the death rate increase.