Cheney on Cheney

Cheney

In some of the most self-reflective words ever spoken by the former Vice President, here is an excerpt from Dick Cheney’s May 27, 2006 commencement address at Natrona County High School in Wyoming.

Stay focused on the job you have, not the next job you might want.  In your careers, people will give you more responsibility when they see that you take your present job seriously.  Do the work in front of you.  Try to find ways to make yourself indispensable.  And I can almost guarantee that recognition, advancement, and other good things will follow.

I think there's also a lot of truth to the old wisdom that you should choose your friends carefully.  They have a big influence on the kind of person you become.  So when you see good qualities in people--things you admire, habits you’d like to pick up, principles you respect--keep those people close at hand in your life.  In many ways, when you choose your friends you choose your future. 

Source: Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007), 8-9.