Our priority is to go after ISIL. And so what we have said is that we are not engaging in a military action against the Syrian regime. We are going after ISIL facilities and personnel who are using Syria as a safe haven, in service of our strategy in Iraq.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game.

Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will kill many people and destroy much of the country, providing recruits for terrorist actions.

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

The United States is a violent military state. It’s been involved in military action all over the place.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

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.

I think the running game is very important to every offense. Being balanced is extremely important. There’s times where you have to throw the ball. You could be down late in the game, you need to come back; you have to be able to pass it when they know you’re passing it.

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.

Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.

There’s a lot of revisionist history that goes on these days about Iraq.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

Football is a game you cannot play without making mistakes.

Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

How you go about testing is just very different to just being in the situation of qualifying, having to go out, having to nail the lap.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

The onus is on the managers to send out an attacking formation and to tell their players to be bold.

Most of the stuff I try in a game, in the moment, I have supreme confidence I’m going to execute it.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood.

I don’t think there’s been anything in the game of football in my lifetime that has changed college football more than redshirting.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

Some of the generals are saying, ‚We’re making progress. We are clearing an area.‘ But you really don’t defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

Because I know about the Holy Land, I’ve taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and – but you can’t bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.

An army marches on its stomach.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.

If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.