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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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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
Achieved
Excellence
Curiosity
Anywhere
Follow
Leader
People

More quotes by 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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Treat people kindly. When you are kind to somebody and I don't mean necessarily buddy-buddy, just show kindness and consideration. Show that people are worthy and you respect them and you are glad they're with you.
Colin Powell
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Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.
Colin Powell
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President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards.
Colin Powell
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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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Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
Colin Powell
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Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
Colin Powell
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The Court is perhaps one of the last citadels of jealously preserved individualism. For the most part, we function as nine, small independent law firms.
Colin Powell
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Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?
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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We have to be on guard that we don't spend so much time worrying about terrorism and guarding ourselves that we start to lose the essence of who we are as an open, freedom-loving people, welcoming to the rest of the world.
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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Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!
Colin Powell
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We need stable regimes in this part of the world [the Mideast] who will be partners and friends of ours, because the fact of the matter is we do rely on imported oil to fuel our economy and to fuel our nation.
Colin Powell
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Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
Colin Powell
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The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.
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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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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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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The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
Colin Powell