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Quotes by Colin Powell

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.
– Colin Powell
Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.
– Colin Powell
Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.
– Colin Powell
Experts often possess more data than judgment.
– Colin Powell
Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
– Colin Powell
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.
– Colin Powell
Have a vision. Be demanding.
– Colin Powell
I can think of nothing that Saddam Hussein can do diplomatically (to avoid war). I think that time is now over. He's had his chance, he has had many chances over the last 12 years and he has blown every one of those chances.
– Colin Powell
I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.
– Colin Powell
I try to be the same person I was yesterday.
– Colin Powell
I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world.
– Colin Powell
I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.
– Colin Powell
If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
– Colin Powell
It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
– Colin Powell
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
– Colin Powell
Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'
– Colin Powell
Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
– Colin Powell
Remain calm. Be kind.
– Colin Powell
The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.
– Colin Powell
The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.
– Colin Powell
The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.
– Colin Powell
The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international efforts in the world.
– Colin Powell
Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villians. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.
– Colin Powell
Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.
– Colin Powell
War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
– Colin Powell
We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in.
– Colin Powell
When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.
– Colin Powell
Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
– Colin Powell
You don't know what you can get away with until you try.
– Colin Powell
You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.
– Colin Powell
When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.
– Colin Powell
What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.
– Colin Powell
We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.
– Colin Powell
We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.
– Colin Powell
We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.
– Colin Powell
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
– Colin Powell
Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
– Colin Powell
Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff.
– Colin Powell
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
– Colin Powell
My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don't share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.
– Colin Powell
Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!
– Colin Powell
It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'
– Colin Powell
In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that's called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.
– Colin Powell
In other words, don't expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem, let's go and get it'.
– Colin Powell
I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
– Colin Powell
I respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.
– Colin Powell
I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.
– Colin Powell
I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.
– Colin Powell
Get mad, then get over it.
– Colin Powell
Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.
– Colin Powell
A dream doesn't become reality through magic it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
– Colin Powell