Colin Powell Quotes

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

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.

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.

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.

Always find different ways to accomplish the mission. Then run a counter-analysis and list the advantages and disadvantages. When you have done that, you are ready to make a decision.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

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.

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

The troops may whine and moan, but when they meet the standard, there's a sense of pride.

I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.

Leadership is all about people … and getting the most out of people.

With vision only, you get no follow-through. With enforcers only, the vision is realized but leaves a lot of wreckage.

Remain calm, be kind.

It is not possible to rule out anything because we don't know what will happen.

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.

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.

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.

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

We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.

I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.

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

My own experience is that you get as much information as you can and then you pay attention to your intuition, to your informed instinct.

I have found that leadership is leadership is leadership. It applies whether you are in government or in corporate life or in non-profit life.

One thing the military does far better than business is train its own leaders. I can't go to IBM and hire a battalion commander. They don't have any.

The ties that bind us are stronger than the occasional stresses that separate us.

Decision-making is lonely.

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

Time is passing, ... We have to look at the reality of the situation and ... redouble our efforts and get on with it.

Have a vision. Be demanding.

Some people naturally have a sense of empathy and an understanding of how to bring their followers to do things. They become great politicians.

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

People get work done, not buildings, not staffs in a generic sense, and not plans, but people

Leadership is solving problems.

There is no question about the fact that we had very serious disagreements with my German, French, and Russian colleagues over the Iraq war. But I never stopped talking.

Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!

Every human endeavor has leaders and followers, and your job as a leader is to inspire.

Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

Almost invariably, whoever doesn't win the argument is going to be unhappy.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.

Bahrain is moving at one pace, Morocco another, Qatar at another, Kuwait at yet another. And we are there to assist our friends.

I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.

So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.

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.

You can't get it all done yourself. The best leaders are not afraid of picking people who are better than they are and who may one day replace them.

The claims made about Iraq's WMD capabilities before the invasion were inaccurate, wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading.

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.

For all the hardship, I was still excited to be on the trail, testing my endurance, feeling especially alive as strength and fatigue flowed alternately through my limbs.

Sometimes what my analytical mind says to me is not what I'll do.

The United States stands willing to work with a transformed Palestinian Authority with new leaders coming to the front.