Colin Powell Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
~ Colin Powell

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

Get mad, then get over it.
~ Colin Powell

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
~ 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

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

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

I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.
~ 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

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.
~ 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'
~ Colin Powell

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

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

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

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

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

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

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.
~ 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

Experts often possess more data than judgment.
~ 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