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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

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Colin Powell
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: April 5
Diplomat
Former United States Secretary Of State
Politician
Soldier
New York City
New York
Colin Luther Powell
Black
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Tell
Progressive
Stories
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Come
Shots
Many
Longer
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Somebody
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More quotes by Colin Powell

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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
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Pissing people off doesn't mean you're doing the right things, but doing the right things will almost inevitably piss people off.
Colin Powell
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I'll tell you what they're all going to face, whichever one of them becomes president on January 21st of 2009. They will face a military force - a United States military force that cannot sustain - continually sustain 140,000 people deployed in Iraq and the 20-odd or 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan and our other deployments.
Colin Powell
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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
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Everybody makes bad decisions. I am sure I have made my share of them over 40 years of service. Or I have made good decisions and have been overruled. The real challenge, when you are overruled, is to remember who the boss is and don't take it personally.
Colin Powell
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Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff.
Colin Powell
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I have the deepest regret about 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most difficult days I've ever had. I was in Lima, Peru, and had to fly back eight hours not knowing what happened in my own country, knowing thousands of my fellow citizens had died.
Colin Powell
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Economy's got to get moving, we've got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.
Colin Powell
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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
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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
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It takes more courage to send men into battle than to fight the battle yourself.
Colin Powell
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The best way to create a winning team is to train them, give them everything they need to get the job done and second, make sure they know what the job is and what the job will be. So you connect strategy to resources.
Colin Powell
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Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.
Colin Powell
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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
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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
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The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.
Colin Powell
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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
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It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
Colin Powell
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Sometimes what my analytical mind says to me is not what I'll do.
Colin Powell
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Luck tends to come to people who are prepared.
Colin Powell