Colin Powell famous quotes

A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
-- Colin Powell

#Dream #Determination #Military

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is "no." That's not America.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #America #Answers

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

We knew that al-Qaida was a threat to our country. We knew that the Clinton administration understood this and was working against al-Qaida We did not ignore al-Qaida. We spent a lot of our time thinking about terrorism, what should we do about it.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #Thinking #Als

Get mad, then get over it.
-- Colin Powell

#Life #Moving On #Wise

Failure is a part of life and you have to learn to deal with it. Failure is something that is part of life's cycle and it's from failure that you gain life experience.
-- Colin Powell

#Gains #Life Experience #Parts Of Life

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Positive #Inspiring

Treat people kindly. When you are kind to somebody and I don't mean necessarily "buddy-buddy", just show kindness and consideration. Show that people are worthy and you respect them and you are glad they're with you.
-- Colin Powell

#Kindness #Mean #People

Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Moving #Fire

The best way to create a winning team is to train them, give them everything they need to get the job done and second, make sure they know what the job is and what the job will be. So you connect strategy to resources.
-- Colin Powell

#Jobs #Team #Winning

Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.
-- Colin Powell

#Team #Fads #Management

Thee are such horrible weapons. And so no sane leader would ever want to cross that line to using nuclear weapons. And, if you are not going to cross that line, then these things are basically useless.
-- Colin Powell

#Leader #Nuclear #Useless

None of us can change our yesterdays but all of us can change our tomorrows.
-- Colin Powell

#Courage #Yesterday #Tomorrow

It is not the role of the United States to dictate change, but to enter into discussions with our friends.
-- Colin Powell

#United States #Roles #Discussion

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

#Inspirational #Motivational #Attitude

President's personal staff has a unique role. They're his intimate personal advisers, and the tradition and the precedent has been, even when I was national security adviser, that people in that position do not testify before the Congress. They talk to the Congress. They have meetings with the Congress.
-- Colin Powell

#Unique #People #President

Be careful what you choose: You may get it.
-- Colin Powell

#May #Be Careful #Careful

I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.
-- Colin Powell

#America #Focus #President

Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.
-- Colin Powell

#Organization #People #Accomplishment

I have the deepest regret about 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most difficult days I've ever had. I was in Lima, Peru, and had to fly back eight hours not knowing what happened in my own country, knowing thousands of my fellow citizens had died.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #Regret #Eight

The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Success #Uplifting

I have always tried to do my job in a way that I have people give me different points of view.
-- Colin Powell

#Jobs #Views #People

1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. 2. Get mad, then get over it. 3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. 4. It can be done! 5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it. 6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. 7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours. 8. Check small things. 9. Share credit. 10. Remain calm. Be kind.
-- Colin Powell

#Morning #Fall #Thinking

President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards.
-- Colin Powell

#War #President #Cuban

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

#Motivational #Inspiring #Leadership

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Military #Work

Lying offshore, ready to act, the presence of ships and Marines sometimes means much more than just having air power or ship's fire, when it comes to deterring a crisis. And the ships and Marines may not have to do anything but lie offshore. It is hard to lie offshore with a C-141 or C-130 full of airborne troops.
-- Colin Powell

#Lying #Mean #Marine

You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy.
-- Colin Powell

#Patriotic #Tragedy #Spirit

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Soldier #Problem

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
-- Colin Powell

#Military #Survival #Enemy

Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
-- Colin Powell

#Decision #Facts #Way

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Fields

I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
-- Colin Powell

#Attitude #Winning #Thinking

Strategy equals execution. All the great ideas and visions in the world are worthless if they can't be implemented rapidly and efficiently. Good leaders delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day.
-- Colin Powell

#Ideas #Empowering #Leader

Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.
-- Colin Powell

#People #Succeed #Failing

Trust is the essence of Leadership.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Essence

Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know.
-- Colin Powell

#Friendship #Kindness #Receiving

Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That's part of the normal diplomatic relations.
-- Colin Powell

#Mean #Differences #Mad

The greatest gifts my parents gave to me...were their unconditional love and a set of values.
-- Colin Powell

#Father #Unconditional Love #Parent

If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.
-- Colin Powell

#Dirty #Tools #Sticks

Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.
-- Colin Powell

#Leader #Honor #Core Values

I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote,
-- Colin Powell

#Want #Vote #Difficult

You should never be so involved with your position/job that when the position is gone your entire self image is gone with it.
-- Colin Powell

#Jobs #Self #Gone

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

#Country #Government #Community

Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find.
-- Colin Powell

#Might #Appearance #Surface

Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.
-- Colin Powell

#Fighting #Men #Years

I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.
-- Colin Powell

#Two #Issues #People

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

#Country #Moving #Law

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Art #Management

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

#Zero #Military #Heart

Have a vision. Be demanding.
-- Colin Powell

#Freedom #Vision

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 state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.
-- Colin Powell

#Loyalty #Mean #Thinking

Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
-- Colin Powell

#Loyalty #Integrity #Ego

Always be looking for that which you do well and that which you love doing, and when you find those two things together — man, you got it.
-- Colin Powell

#Men #Two #Together

You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
-- Colin Powell

#Choices

Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude
-- Colin Powell

#Attitude #Excellence #Prevailing

Let's not forget that Congress bears a lot of responsibility for many of the problems we have now
-- Colin Powell

#Responsibility #Bears #Problem

If a leader doesn't convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they'll start to fall down and get depressed.
-- Colin Powell

#Fall #Passion #Organization

Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #Stupid #Iraq

Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
-- Colin Powell

#Military #Challenges #Backyards

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
-- Colin Powell

#Leadership #Mind #Details

All children need a laptop. Not a computer, but a human laptop. Moms, Dads, Grannies and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles - someone to hold them, read to them, teach them. Loved ones who will embrace them and pass on the experience, rituals and knowledge of a hundred previous generations. Loved ones who will pass to the next generation their expectations of them, their hopes, and their dreams.
-- Colin Powell

#Love #Mom #Dream

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Leadership #Trying

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
-- Colin Powell

#Giving Up #Giving #Giving Back

It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
-- Colin Powell

#Good Morning #Thinking #Optimism

The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.
-- Colin Powell

#Success #Military #Winning

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #Moving #Writing

Experts often possess more data than judgment.
-- Colin Powell

#Data #Experts #Action

We can seldom get our children to do what we tell them, but they almost never fail to imitate us.
-- Colin Powell

#Children #Failing #Our Children

No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic.
-- Colin Powell

#War #Pandemics #Earth

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers ...
-- Colin Powell

#Leader #Great Leader

Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
-- Colin Powell

#Children #Looks #World

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people.
-- Colin Powell

#Successful #Thinking #People

Let it [racism] be a problem to someone else... Let it drag them down. Don't use it as an excuse for your own shortcomings.
-- Colin Powell

#Uplifting #Men #Racism

All values are important, everyone who has ever touched my life in some way was a mentor for good or bad. Life is a blend, and a person is a blend of all the influences that have touched their lives.
-- Colin Powell

#Mentor #Important #Way

The bottom line in all of it is that, in life, it's all about people.
-- Colin Powell

#People #Lines #Bottom

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

#Business #Military #Political

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

#Business #Health #Destiny

Luck tends to come to people who are prepared.
-- Colin Powell

#People #Luck #Prepared

Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.
-- Colin Powell

#Inspirational #Hate #Trying

Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.
-- Colin Powell

#Mirrors #Perspective #Car

Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House  has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that's despicable.
-- Colin Powell

#Real #Party #Character

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
-- Colin Powell

#Motivational #Leadership #Mean

My responsibility, our responsibility as lucky Americans, is to try to give back to this country as much as it has given us, as we continue our American journey together.
-- Colin Powell

#Country #Military #Responsibility