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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
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More quotes by Colin Powell

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Be careful what you choose: You may get it.
Colin Powell
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We are not sure to what extent Saddam's [Hussein ] own people were conveying an incorrect picture to him. But this body of evidence was believed not only by President George W. Bush. President Bill Clinton used that same body of intelligence before bombing Iraq in 1998.
Colin Powell
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There is no such thing as an unimportant person in an organization.
Colin Powell
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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.
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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What could be more important than equipping the next generation with the character and competence they need to become successful
Colin Powell
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Don't just show kindness in passing or to be courteous. Show it in depth, show it with passion, and expect nothing in return. Kindness is not just about being nice it's about recognizing another human being who deserves care and respect.
Colin Powell
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Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Colin Powell
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We are rather candid with them about the nature of their political processes and the state of development of their institutions, but they are looking to the West because they know that's where success lies.
Colin Powell
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In my 35 years in the army I was in school for 6 years. I think corporations should take a look at whether they are investing enough in the development of their human capital.
Colin Powell
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It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.
Colin Powell
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You have achieved excellence as a leader when people will follow you anywhere if only out of curiosity.
Colin Powell
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Our failure was that our intelligence community thought [Saddam Hussein ] had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. That was a mistake. There is fallibility in human intelligence and in human decisions.
Colin Powell
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Saudi Arabia will have to decide its own path, and I don't know if it will decide a path like any other nation in the region or if it will design something that is unique to Saudi Arabia.
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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I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.
Colin Powell
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Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villians. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.
Colin Powell
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The person who will decide whether or not there will be war or peace is Saddam Hussein, and all he has to do is give up these terrible weapons that he has used to kill fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims in that part of the world, and to step away from his past behaviour which invaded neighbouring countries.
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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With respect to where we are now, we have a voluntary army. And if we ever go back to conscription I hope that at time it will be the kind of conscription that was put in at the end of the Vietnam War. And that is, everybody is equally liable to be called to serve the nation in time of conflict.
Colin Powell