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We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

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
Needs
Obligation
Going
Citizens
Community
Understand
Government
Need
Replace
Country
Educate
Important
Throughout

More quotes by Colin Powell

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Always be looking for the opportunities, and always be optimistic about what you can do with that opportunity.
Colin Powell
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Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff.
Colin Powell
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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.
Colin Powell
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You have to create circumstances where your first-tier leader knows what you are trying to accomplish, because he is the one who's going to get it done.
Colin Powell
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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
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There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.
Colin Powell
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Another rule I have is: Don't let your ego get tied up in a policy dispute. Otherwise, if things don't go your way, you can end up breaking a relationship with somebody with whom you can't afford to break.
Colin Powell
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Even the greatest of all strategists must occasionally take into account the presence of an enemy.
Colin Powell
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War is never a happy solution, but it may be the only solution. We must exhaustively explore other possible solutions before we make the choice for war. Every political and diplomatic effort should be made to avoid war while achieving your objective.
Colin Powell
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The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
Colin Powell
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One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.
Colin Powell
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No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic.
Colin Powell
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There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.
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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If you are black, if you are Puerto Rican or Hispanic, be proud of that. But don't let it become a problem. Let it become somebody else's problem.
Colin Powell
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It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.
Colin Powell
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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
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In other words, don't expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem, let's go and get it'.
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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We want to approach this in a multilateral way, talking with our friends, consulting with our security council colleagues in the United Nations, hoping to find a way to solve this peacefully, but at the same time recognising that unless the threat of military force is there, Iraq will not disarm.
Colin Powell