JIM MATTIS

Your military is hard-wired to approach everything with a can do attitude. Therefore reviewing and questioning us is helpful.

History will show you not all the answers, but it’ll tell you a lot of the questions to ask.

I get very very concerned when I hear people start characterizing their opponents as stupid. I still understand that because politics is a little rough and tumble at times, but I don’t buy it and when they start calling each other either crazy or evil. You and I, we don’t compromise with crazy people or evil people. And so, I don’t think that’s helpful. Generally speaking, just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them crazy or evil.

I don’t care for ideological people. It’s like those people just want to stop thinking.

The way that you get your diplomats listened to in an imperfect world is you make certain you back them up with hard power. The reason I say that is, as much as I’d like to live in a world where people who are out to do others harm would be willing to listen to rational thought, not everyone is.

There’s a carrying capacity in any society for how much change it can incorporate at any one time.

I’ve always tried to help students because I think we owe it to you young folks to pass on what we learned going down the road so that you can make your own mistakes, not the same ones we made.

We in the Defense Department want to know what we are talking about when we provide information so it will take some time longer for us to get all the information.

If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.

PowerPoint makes us stupid.

What we achieved was a nuclear pause, not a nuclear halt.

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.

It's not an easy course. It's not designed to be. We're not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

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.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor, and we'll fight, and we'll fight well.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

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 like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.

I don't have the best track record with quotes.

I don't write policy for my government.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.

There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.