Colin Powell Quotes

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.

Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

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

You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

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

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

Experts often possess more data than judgment.

Get mad, then get over it.

Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty.

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

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‘.

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.

You’re not just voting for an individual, in my judgment, you’re voting for an agenda. You’re voting for a platform. You’re voting for a political philosophy.

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.

In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there’s a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.

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.

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.

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.

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

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

Engineering didn’t take to me. And what saved me and kept me in college was I ran into ROTC cadets who were in a fraternity called The Pershing Rifles. And I found my place. I found discipline. I found structure. I found people that were like me and I liked.

Don’t bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.

You can’t just have slogans, you can’t just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it’s going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.

Throughout my career, I learned plenty about war on the battlefield, but I learned even more about the importance of finding peace. And that is what the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. do: prevent the wars that we can avoid so that we fight only the ones we must.

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.

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.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

The country would be a lot better off if we stopped having comment sections. And if we got rid of Twitter.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

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.

Economy’s got to get moving, we’ve got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.

Trump just looks stupid trying to appeal to blacks and Latinos.

People have asked me, ‚What would you have done if you hadn’t gone into the Army?‘ I’d say I’d probably be a bus driver. I don’t know.

So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you’re going to win.