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Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

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
Adverse
Adversity
Stand
Decision
Facts
Way
Good

More quotes by Colin Powell

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Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
Colin Powell
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The information that the intelligence people used was a combination of satellite information, signals intelligence, and human intelligence. We are not sure to what extent Saddam [Hussein] was trying to convey an incorrect picture to us.
Colin Powell
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I think all of the attention of the world, to include the attention of the Arab world, should be on Saddam Hussein and whether or not he is prepared to give up the weapons of mass destruction that he has used to terrorise the region.
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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That's why the army sends all its future generals to what we call charm school. As soon as you are a general, people think that you know everything. You think yourself that you have become omniscient and omnipotent. Be careful, because people want to do everything they can to please the general, and you need to guard against this.
Colin Powell
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I think we can make a contribution to their [Saudi Arabia] thinking as they decide how they should deal with the economic and social challenges that they are facing.
Colin Powell
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The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people.
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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Every organization needs to be introspective, transparent, and honest with itself. This only works if everyone is unified on the goals and purposes of the organization and there is trust within the team. High-performing, successful organizations build cultures of introspection and trust and never lose sight of their purpose.
Colin Powell
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I would not presume from this distance, nor would America presume to say who should be the leader of the Iraqi nation.
Colin Powell
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Remain calm, be kind.
Colin Powell
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I think you can improve on that natural ability with training and exposure to great leaders of the past and to management theories.
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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The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.
Colin Powell
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I think that military, corporate, and non-political organizations are pretty much similar.
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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We knew that al-Qaida was a threat to our country. We knew that the Clinton administration understood this and was working against al-Qaida We did not ignore al-Qaida. We spent a lot of our time thinking about terrorism, what should we do about it.
Colin Powell
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Lying offshore, ready to act, the presence of ships and Marines sometimes means much more than just having air power or ship's fire, when it comes to deterring a crisis. And the ships and Marines may not have to do anything but lie offshore. It is hard to lie offshore with a C-141 or C-130 full of airborne troops.
Colin Powell
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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
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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