Colin Powell Quotes

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

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

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

Get mad, then get over it.
- 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

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
- Colin Powell

Have fun in your command.
Don't always run at a breakneck pace.
Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families.
- Colin Powell

I consider myself a moderate Republican.
I have very, very moderate social views,
and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.
- 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

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.
- Colin Powell

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

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

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
- Colin Powell

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

Success is the result of perfection,
hard work,
learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.
- Colin Powell

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

I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.
- Colin Powell

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

The United States is not stingy.
We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.
- Colin Powell

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

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

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

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

Experts often possess more data than judgment.
- Colin Powell

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that
when your position falls,
your ego goes with it.
- Colin Powell

Politics is not bean bags.
It's serious, tough stuff.
- Colin Powell

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

Don't bother people for help without first trying to
solve the problem yourself.
- Colin Powell

It's nice to say let's be bipartisan.
But we're a partisan nation.
We were raised as a partisan nation.
- Colin Powell

Bad news isn't wine.
It doesn't improve with age.
- 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

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 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

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

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

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally
sign a bill and everybody says,
'Gee, isn't that wonderful?'
- 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

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

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

Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers,
our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have,
you know, they're not ready to learn.
And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade,
they know they're behind.
- 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

It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured,
but at the same time too - in the eyes of the American people,
in my judgment, it looked as if that somehow become
more important than the main attack which was to fix
the economy and get the Americans working again.
- 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

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

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program.
And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they
have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.
- Colin Powell

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.
- 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

Great opportunities to help others seldom come,
but small ones surround us every day.
- Sally Koch

I create a new and more loving story
to surround each event in my past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Truth is by nature self-evident.
As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance
that surround it, it shines clear.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Property is intended to serve life,
and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect,
it has no personal being.
It is part of the earth man walks on.
It is not man.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Visualize your end result as having already been accomplished.
Let the image of your success play on the giant screen
in full color with surround sound -
so real you can smell and taste it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We all should choose our friends carefully.
I used to think that no one could know me better than somebody else,
because you're inside yourself, your body, you can't see yourself.
If you think like that, you surround yourself with
other people who are willing to tell you who you are,
which are usually judgmental people ...
we should really surround ourselves with the ones
that adore us and believe in the highest of us.
- Jewel

Surround yourself with people who believe in you.
- Brian Koslow

An ordinary man can surround himself with two thousand
books and thenceforward have at least one place in
the world in which it is possible to be happy.
- Augustine Birrell

My first job on 2001 was to make all of the HAL readouts:
the 16 screens that surround HAL's eyes.
- Douglas Trumbull

Computer technology is so built into our lives that
it's part of the surround of every artist.
- Steven Levy

Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Heaven is just,
and the day of triumph will surely come,
when justice and truth will be vindicated.
- Mary Todd Lincoln

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road.
It's who you surround yourself with.
My band and crew are really positive guys.
- Brad Paisley

Fortunately any of the songs we've recorded can be
extremely fulfilling to perform depending on the variety
of circumstances that surround any given show.
- Dwight Yoakam

Kids now are so used to surround sound and the power in theater speakers,
that the concert hall is a disappointment to them.
- David Ogden Stiers

Prominence is cool, but when the delusion kicks in it can be a drag.
Especially if you choose to surround yourself with
friends and not acolytes.
- Barbara Kruger

Most human beings today waste some 25 to 30 years of
their lives before they break through the actual and
conventional lies which surround them.
- Isadora Duncan

Suddenly I've got an overwhelming desire to surround
myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.
- Sylvester Stallone

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius.
Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are.
Third, leave them to go get on with it.
- David Ogilvy

My philosophy of leadership is to surround myself with
good people who have ability,
judgment and knowledge, but above all,
a passion for service.
- Sonny Perdue

That's my only goal.
Surround myself with funny people, and make sure everyone
has a good time and works hard.
- Joe Rogan

When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people,
we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer
to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.
- Bell Hooks

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