Top 70 Erik Prince Quotes

I loved being a SEAL. I loved working with those kind of guys and a sense of mission, and Blackwater was started to continue that sense of mission.

I think everybody wanted to help the U.S. government in some way after 9/11.

We have done great work for the U.S. government.

America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Whether it’s allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should.

Russia is basically Italy with nuclear weapons.

Let’s stop trading freedom for the illusion of security.

Training for any difficult job is essential.

I’m a pretty stubborn guy. I don’t quit too easily.

I give people ideas on how to solve intractable problems.

I’m painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I’m paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket.

Developing good investments in Africa is by and large the best for the people of Africa that have a job, that have electricity, that might have clean water, that might have those things that we in the West take horribly for granted.

In Joe Yorio you find a guy who’s smarter at business than I am. I’m an entrepreneur and idea guy; he’s a professional businessman.

Some of the most dedicated, most passionate people I’ve ever met have been part of the United States armed forces.

Entrepreneurship made America great.

I will support vigorously whoever commits to reduce the size of government the most.

If I could send a message back to my younger self, it would be: Do not work for the State Department at all.

Our failed population-centric approach to Afghanistan has only led to missed opportunities, which is why Afghanistan depends on donors for 90% of government revenues. A smarter, trade-centric approach will boost Afghanistan’s long-run viability by weaning it off donor welfare dependency.

I believe there is significant overreach by the NSA in how it monitors American citizens.

My father was a brilliant inventor and businessman. He taught me to appreciate the opportunities that America offers to innovators.

The video game industry is constantly evolving. The sheer creativity matched with cutting-edge technologies gives me the comfort that innovation is alive and well in America.

You pretty much remove the entire political texture from Blackwater when you come to China. What they look at is our 100 per cent success rate.

I am a businessman, not a politician, but I am also a proud American who would never do anything against my country’s national interest.

Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.

For people to mischaracterize my time or ownership of Blackwater as being some great financial bonanza, it was not. It was most definitely not.

It’s amazing how many countries run their embassies as commercial outposts to promote businessmen from their country.

I’m a business guy just trying to make – provide great services to the customers that need us.

I built Blackwater to stay connected to the SEAL teams and to serve that whole community.

I never intended to be a defense contractor in the first place.

The greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity is not al-Qaida, the Taliban, Iran or even China. It’s an idea, the idea that we can spend our way out of our problems without tightening our belt and paring down the very bloated government.

We have the finest officers in the world, but it seems like once they become generals it is a self-licking ice cream cone of who gets promoted and who gets approved to join that club. No one thinks outside the box.

Our nation has endured and flourished because people of goodwill adapt and innovate productive solutions to our nation’s problems – not because of top-down dictates.

The failings in Afghanistan don’t fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.

I’m not sure whether a person can really gauge the quality of his work by the enemies he’s made, but if I somehow upset Hamas and the Taliban and Henry Waxman, I must have done something right.

I’m no hero. The world knows all too well about my mistakes. But I was never meant to play the villain.

The Janjaweed is a truly unfettered bully. No one has stood up to them. If they were met by a mobile quick reaction force of African Union soldiers, the Janjaweed would quickly learn their habits were not sustainable.

Readiness is an oft-mentioned – but frequently ignored – necessity.

If the Chinese are sensitive about anything, it’s not having their people die.

I’ve done dumb things.

In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.

I love the U.S. military. I want them to be the most effective and the most cost-effective and I think there is so much spending and so much bloat and so much bureaucracy that it actually hinders them from having a lot of the mission accomplishments that they should.

We have kind of turned our back on the fact that hard work, sacrifice, risk-taking, innovation, is what made America great.

One of the real core competencies of Blackwater, or companies like Blackwater, is we can operate in difficult places without any outside support.

I can relate to ranchers and roughnecks and professional game guides and farmers and homemakers.

Some people will always hate the name Blackwater. They might not like me.

I’m a strong supporter of the military.

I think the diplomatic-security needs in Iraq were an anomaly. There’s never been a bulge of requirements that large ever before.

When someone needs copper, or wood or an ag product, and they invest capital somewhere to make that happen, and people get jobs from that, and that good gets introduced to the world stage and it gets traded and moved, the whole world benefits.

Very few people know someone who would voluntarily go into a war zone to protect a person he has never met. I know 1,000 of them, and I am proud that they are part of our team.

China trading with its neighbours and building infrastructure brings only benefits.

Troops fighting for their lives should not have to ask a lawyer sitting in air conditioning 500 miles away for permission to drop a bomb.

We’re trying to do for the national ­security apparatus what FedEx did for the postal ­service.

I represented everything Democrats loathed.

I live in Loudoun County, and the counties surrounding Washington, D.C., have the highest per-capita income in the country. Not because they create wealth, but because they suck wealth from the rest of the country, and that system needs to be shaken up.

Every individual who has worked for Blackwater in Iraq has previously served in the U.S. military or as a police officer. Many were highly decorated. And from the beginning, these individuals have been bound by detailed contracts that ensure intensive government direction and control.

If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?

President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.

I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.

We’re very excited about Africa – it can be the breadbasket of the world.

I don’t know if I want to live in a country where lone wolf and random terror attacks are impossible ’cause that country would look more like North Korea than America.

Limited government is best.

I think faith gives us a structure around which to try to organize our lives. I’m also a big believer, and very thankful that there’s forgiveness.

I would rather deal with the vagaries of investing in Africa than in figuring out what the hell else Washington is going to do to the entrepreneur next.

I’m a very free market guy.

Bad things usually don’t happen by themselves in Iraq.

I like the fact that Donald Trump has been in the private sector. I like that he’s had to make a payroll. I like that he’s had to do projects.

Unfortunately, I kind of split between Virginia and living in an airplane. I travel a lot.

I’ve been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services.

We need to privatize whenever possible.

We now know that gun-free zones, though well intentioned, do not prevent attacks.

Sometimes motorists do irrational things.