He may have left a lot to be desired as defence secretary, but he did have a sort of way with words:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,,1943315,00.html

Philosophy (epistemology)- 'The message is that there are known knowns - there are things that we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know. And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.'

Detective Work- ‘We know where they [Iraq's alleged WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Libertarianism- 'Stuff happens. It's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.' (has anyone told the ‘law and order’ people about this?)

Open to all possibilities- 'He [Osama Bin Laden] is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.'

A sense of wonder- 'This is fantastic - I've got a laser pointer! ... Holy mackerel ... ah man, that's terrific!'

A straight-talker- 'I shouldn't get into ... this is diplomacy, and I don't do diplomacy.'

Too much of a straight-talker- 'We do have a saying in America: if you're in a hole, stop digging ..... erm, I'm not sure I should have said that.'

More epistemology (the relationship between belief and knowledge)- 'I believe what I said yesterday ... I don't know what I said, er, but I know what I think, and ... well, I assume it's what I said.'

Ethics- 'Well, um, you know, some things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said.'

Ethical implictions of actions- 'It's like, you know, stirring for troubled waters.'

Seeing Iraq in pieces- 'What we are seeing is not the war in Iraq. What we're seeing is slices of the war in Iraq.'