Quotes from Erik Prince

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

We need to privatize whenever possible.

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.

I wish we had been doing diplomatic security in Benghazi. I can tell you that Benghazi would not have happened if Blackwater were on the job there.

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

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

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.

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

Since United States military operations in Iraq began in 2003, I have visited Iraq at least 15 times. But unlike politicians who visit, the question for me has never been why the U.S. got into Iraq. Instead, as the CEO of Blackwater, the urgent question was how the company I head could perform the duties asked of us by the U.S. State Department.

C'mon now, I'm not going to make it easy for the terrorists to get me.

My dad built his business by providing products he figured the customers would want.

Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time.

I know a lot of people in the aviation business, particularly ones who will fly to places where your boots get dirty when you get out of the airplane.

I'm a very free market guy.

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 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.

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.

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.

We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen.

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

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

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

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.

Any time you employ thousands of people, some people do dumb things.