Latest Chuck Hagel Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• All I can do is present what I think is in the best interest of this country and how I can best serve this country and the president of the United States. And I feel very good about that opportunity I've had.

  Chuck Hagel

  Country, Opportunity, Thinking

  Source: www.wbur.org

• No one person leads alone - can't do it, it's impossible. It doesn't make any sense. You need a team.

  Chuck Hagel

  Team, Needs, Impossible

  Source: www.wbur.org

• I'm not sure leaders listen enough, especially to their people. And I've always thought in everything I've tried to do in my life, in the jobs I've had, is that if we can turn our transmitters off and our receivers on more often, we're better leaders and we know more of what is going on and therefore we can lead more effectively.

  Chuck Hagel

  Jobs, People, Leader

  Source: www.wbur.org

• You can have all the capabilities; if you don't have the quality people, you don't have much.

  Chuck Hagel

  People, Quality, Capability

  Source: www.wbur.org

• I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

  Chuck Hagel

  Cutting, Two, Suffering

  Source: www.wbur.org

• I don't get into the book-telling business of conversations I have with the president. That's not my style, and I don't think that's a responsible thing to do.

  Chuck Hagel

  Book, Thinking, Style

  Source: www.wbur.org

• If we have to continue to live under sequestration, it will have a maximum impact on our ability to fulfill the president's strategic guidance. We can't do it all. It's as simple as that, with the limitations of the budget as severe as they are. These deep, abrupt cuts have forced us to make decisions that are not in the interest of America.

  Chuck Hagel

  Cutting, Simple, Impact

  Source: www.wbur.org

• There's always a balance, I think, any administration has to find in not just the military but in any agency of government.

  Chuck Hagel

  Military, Thinking, Agency

  Source: www.wbur.org

• The president of the United States is the commander in chief, and the people who work with him at the National Security Council are his arm in working with the Defense Department. And, quite frankly, they have responsibility for all of the government. We are one component of the government.

  Chuck Hagel

  Responsibility, Government, People

  Source: www.wbur.org

• Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.

  Chuck Hagel

  Military, Support, Dimensions

  Source: www.wbur.org

• This is eventually how Syria will be resolved - through a political settlement.

  Chuck Hagel

  Political, Settlement, Syria

  Source: www.wbur.org

• Assad must go. He's lost the legitimacy to govern.

  Chuck Hagel

  Legitimacy, Lost, Assad

  Source: www.wbur.org

• We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.

  Chuck Hagel

  Country, Technology, Evil

  Source: www.wbur.org

• This is a complicated time to govern in the world today because of so much going on and it's coming at us at such an unprecedented rate.

  Chuck Hagel

  World, Today, Complicated

  Source: www.wbur.org

• It's critically important that we have governments to work with, that we have entities to work with. President Hadi has been a good partner in that, and we would hope that the next set of leaders that govern Yemen will also take the same approach to cooperation with the United States.

  Chuck Hagel

  Government, Leader, Important

  Source: www.wbur.org

• I think this is the biggest lesson a president or any of us who has responsibility to govern have to learn: There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction.

  Chuck Hagel

  Responsibility, Thinking, President

  Source: www.wbur.org

• There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important.

  Chuck Hagel

  Thinking, Important, Asking

  Interview with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 26, 2015.