Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

In my sport, we're measured in millimeters and fractions of millimeters.

There's a lot of room for error with a wound in the rear. It's a wide target.

It is better to be approximately right than to be precisely wrong.

Done right, precision can help clarify, plus it's fun.

Master Precision. Be a precision instrument myself.

'Obvious' is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

I've made a career of being precise.

Well the way we perceive accuracy and what accuracy is statistically are really two different things.

Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled 'wrong'.

Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.

Precision is not one of the qualities that comes out in my work.

It is exactness I aim at, and would not have the least mistake, if possible, pass to the world. If I have unhappily fallen into any, it is through inadvertency only

As far as being accurate goes, I think you either are or you aren't. I don't think you can really become accurate.

Precision matters, breh.

Certainty is no guarantor of correctness.

Perfection is crucial in building an aircraft, a bridge, or a high-speed train. The code and mathematics residing just below the surface of the Internet is also this way. Things are either perfectly right or they will not work. So much of the world we work and live in is based upon being correct, being perfect.

An inch in a miss is as good as an ell.

Even stopped clocks are right twice a day.

Exactness in little things is a wonderful source of cheerfulness.

The truth shall set you free. When you hear the truth, it sets you free. So mathematics is truth. It adds up. There's no error. Only time there's an error is when man miscalculates his own problems or his own equations.

The arrow will not always find the mark intended.

Everything that is exact is short.

After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.

If a crooked stick is before you, you need not explain how crooked it is. Lay a straight one down by the side of it, and the work is well done. Preach the truth, and error will stand abashed in its presence.