Top 100 Quotes About Colin Powell
#1. Maybe we don't put our young people in situations often enough where they're allowed to fail. When you fail you gain experience, and with enough experience, you don't fail as often.
Colin Powell
#2. The one thing the terrorists cannot do
not one of them, not 10 of them, not 10,000 of them
they cannot change who we are.
Colin Powell
#3. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.
Colin Powell
#4. The bottom line in all of it is that, in life, it's all about people.
Colin Powell
#5. It was President [Bill] Clinton and the United States congress in 1998 which said that the regime has to be changed because the regime would not give up its weapons of mass destruction. We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed.
Colin Powell
#6. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.
Colin Powell
#7. 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
#8. There was a brief moment after 9/11 when Colin Powell said we should not rush to satisfy the desire for revenge. It was a great moment, an extraordinary moment, because what he was actually asking people to do was to stay with a sense of grief, mournfulness, and vulnerability.
Judith Butler
#9. When you help the poorest in the world, you start to move them up an economic and social ladder, and they're not going to be moving toward violence or terrorism of the kind that we worry about.
Colin Powell
#11. Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.
Colin Powell
#12. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.
Colin Powell
#13. Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.
Harry Belafonte
#14. I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.
Colin Powell
#15. Retired general Colin Powell famously advocates collecting half of the information available, then making a decision, even though your information is clearly incomplete.
Josh Kaufman
#16. We would like to see new leaders come forward who would be accountable and responsible, who would succeed in ending the terror and the violence. And it is up to the Palestinian people to judge who those new leaders should be.
Colin Powell
#17. Officers have been trying for hundreds of years to outsmart soldiers and have still not learned that it cannot be done. We can always count on the native ingenuity of the American GI to save us from ourselves, and to win wars.
Colin Powell
#18. I try to be the same person I was yesterday.
Colin Powell
#19. You know, I think that President Obama is a person who has a great relationship with a number of people. Colin Powell does, too. I think Colin Powell is a fine American, a great leader and sees things in President Obama that he agrees with. He's entitled to have his opinion.
Pete Sessions
#20. Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.
Colin Powell
#21. Saudi Arabia will have to decide its own path, and I don't know if it will decide a path like any other nation in the region or if it will design something that is unique to Saudi Arabia.
Colin Powell
#22. A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.
Colin Powell
#23. The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
Colin Powell
#24. No matter how significant or life-changing your greatest hit or miss might be, neither even begins to define who you are. Each of us is a product of all our experiences and all our interactions with other people. To cite calculus, we are the area under the curve.
Colin Powell
#25. We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
Colin Powell
#26. 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
#27. The burden is on Saddam Hussein. And our policy, our national policy - not the UN policy but our national policy - is that the regime should be changed until such time as he demonstrates that it is not necessary to change the regime because the regime has changed itself.
Colin Powell
#28. Diplomacy never stops, and, with or without an election, it never stops.
Colin Powell
#29. Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.
Colin Powell
#30. It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.
Colin Powell
#31. Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.
Colin Powell
#32. 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
#33. What could be more important than equipping the next generation with the character and competence they need to become successful
Colin Powell
#34. 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
#35. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together
Colin Powell
#36. Trust is the glue that holds an org together & the lubricant that moves it forward.
Colin Powell
#37. It is not possible to rule out anything because we don't know what will happen.
Colin Powell
#38. 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
#39. 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
#40. I agree completely with Secretary Colin Powell, who said today this is an absurdity. And so I think the American people will know it's an absurdity. I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever.
Hillary Clinton
#41. Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?
Colin Powell
#42. Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know.
Colin Powell
#43. That's not really a number I'm terribly interested in.
Colin Powell
#44. Some of the generals are saying, 'We're making progress. We are clearing an area.' But you really don't defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.
Colin Powell
#45. There is no suggestion of regime change; quite the contrary, this is an initiative to help people and to help governments who are inclined toward change.
Colin Powell
#47. There is no such thing as an unimportant person in an organization.
Colin Powell
#48. I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.
Colin Powell
#49. I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell,
Harry Belafonte
#50. It was the Congress that imposed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.
Colin Powell
#51. I strongly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue basically the policies we have been following in recent years. I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change.
Colin Powell
#52. It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.
Colin Powell
#53. Time is passing, ... We have to look at the reality of the situation and ... redouble our efforts and get on with it.
Colin Powell
#54. Be careful what you choose: You may get it.
Colin Powell
#55. I suppose the implication of that is the president and the vice president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs.
Donald Rumsfeld
#56. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
Colin Powell
#57. I will look for a candidate, Republican or Democrat, who seems to be on the way or understands how to resolve the economic difficulties we're having, how to do something about unemployment, how to make sure that we free up our businesses and we don't over-regulate ourselves.
Colin Powell
#59. 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
#60. 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
#61. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
Colin Powell
#62. During the election campaign of 2000, it was generally thought that then-governor Bush didn't know much about foreign policy or national security affairs, and that Colin Powell would lead on that front, while the president's main concern would be domestic.
Elliott Abrams
#63. Let's not forget that Congress bears a lot of responsibility for many of the problems we have now
Colin Powell
#64. Each of us is a product of all our experiences and all our interactions with other people.
Colin Powell
#65. A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the
kind of friends he chooses.
Colin Powell
#66. 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
#67. I get over it quickly and never lose control of myself.
Colin Powell
#68. Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!
Colin Powell
#69. I'm not perfect but I'll be the creator of perfection.
Colin Powell
#70. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.
Colin Powell
#71. If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.
Colin Powell
#72. It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.
Colin Powell
#73. It takes more courage to send men into battle than to fight the battle yourself.
Colin Powell
#74. Experts often possess more data than judgment.
Colin Powell
#75. Don't just show kindness in passing or to be courteous. Show it in depth, show it with passion, and expect nothing in return. Kindness is not just about being nice; it's about recognizing another human being who deserves care and respect.
Colin Powell
#77. Leadership is all about people ... and getting the most out of people.
Colin Powell
#78. We are rather candid with them about the nature of their political processes and the state of development of their institutions, but they are looking to the West because they know that's where success lies
Colin Powell
#79. Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed.
Colin Powell
#80. 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
#81. Always be looking for the opportunities, and always be optimistic about what you can do with that opportunity.
Colin Powell
#82. 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
#83. Every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes
Colin Powell
#84. The ties that bind us are stronger than the occasional stresses that separate us.
Colin Powell
#85. The United States is still seen as the leader at the world that wants to be free.
Colin Powell
#86. Bahrain is moving at one pace, Morocco another, Qatar at another, Kuwait at yet another. And we are there to assist our friends.
Colin Powell
#87. No one has done more to prevent conflict - no one has made a greater sacrifice for the cause for Peace - than you, America's proud missile submarine family. You stand tall among our heroes of the Cold War.
Colin Powell
#88. Terrorism really flourishes in areas of poverty, despair and hopelessness, where people see no future
Colin Powell
#89. Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.
Colin Powell
#90. The United States stands willing to work with a transformed Palestinian Authority with new leaders coming to the front.
Colin Powell
#92. The long bitter years of the Cold War are over. America and her allies have won; totally, decisively, and overwhelmingly ... So thank you SAC. Job well done. Enjoy your retirement.
Colin Powell
#93. President Reagan fueled the spirit of America. His smile, his optimism, his total belief in the ultimate triumph of democracy and freedom, and his willingness to act on that belief, helped end the Cold War and usher in a new and brighter phase of history.
Colin Powell
#94. It is the fault of the United States that these terrible people, these insurgents and terrorists are out there. They are the ones that we ought to be focusing our energy on defeating and not just wring our hands about the fact that it's going to be difficult.
Colin Powell
#95. No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic.
Colin Powell
#96. 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
#98. 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
#100. At the same time I think it is absolutely necessary that there be no confusion, no misunderstanding that if the Iraqis.. do not comply, then there will be consequences and those consequences will involve the use of military force to disarm them through changing the regime.
Colin Powell
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