Quote

Let it [racism] be a problem to someone else... Let it drag them down. Don't use it as an excuse for your own shortcomings.

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
Problem
Uplifting
Men
Drag
Racism
Excuse
Use
Black
Else
Someone
Shortcomings

More quotes by Colin Powell

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I have always gone through public life and saying that with respect to political candidates, I always measure each candidate against what I think the country needs at that time, and I will vote for the person I think who is most qualified to serve the nation at that time.
Colin Powell
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I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.
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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Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.
Colin Powell
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The best leaders are those who break that mission down into the organization's constituent parts, so that everybody understands their role and how it all builds into the whole.
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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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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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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The greatest gifts my parents gave to me...were their unconditional love and a set of values.
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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Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
Colin Powell
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Great leaders are those who are able to look reality in the face, however painful it may be, and deal with it.
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 claims made about Iraq's WMD capabilities before the invasion were inaccurate, wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading.
Colin Powell
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It is the fault of the United States that these terrible people, these insurgents and terrorists are out there. They are the ones that we ought to be focusing our energy on defeating and not just wring our hands about the fact that it's going to be difficult.
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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The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.
Colin Powell
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Almost invariably, whoever doesn't win the argument is going to be unhappy.
Colin Powell
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Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed.
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