Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

Don't blame the boss. He has enough problems.

Remember where you came from.

If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.

Don't be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it.

In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.

If it were a fact, it wouldn't be called intelligence.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to 'carry it off.'

It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

All political parties, if they are to be successful, have to be broad churches.

The principles of conservatism include upholding the rule of law and the United Kingdom's international legal obligations.

Nobody in this country goes around saying: 'I'm feeling very oppressed by the E.U.' Well, one or two people do, but they're a bit odd. Ultimately, if they're getting oppressed by the E.U., they're going to start to feel oppressed by something else and just switch to a new subject of oppression.

If you are making policies through speeches that are contradicting some of the policy development your colleagues are embarked on, you are destroying collective responsibility.