Quote

Always be looking for the opportunities, and always be optimistic about what you can do with that opportunity.

Colin Powell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Optimistic
Opportunities
Looking
Opportunity
Always

More quotes by Colin Powell

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
Colin Powell
Image
There is no such thing as an unimportant person in an organization.
Colin Powell
Image
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
Image
For all the hardship, I was still excited to be on the trail, testing my endurance, feeling especially alive as strength and fatigue flowed alternately through my limbs.
Colin Powell
Image
The president's personal staff has a unique role.
Colin Powell
Image
Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.
Colin Powell
Image
There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.
Colin Powell
Image
Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.
Colin Powell
Image
Everybody makes bad decisions. I am sure I have made my share of them over 40 years of service. Or I have made good decisions and have been overruled. The real challenge, when you are overruled, is to remember who the boss is and don't take it personally.
Colin Powell
Image
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
Image
The greatest gifts my parents gave to me...were their unconditional love and a set of values.
Colin Powell
Image
I regret that the presentation I made at the UN turned out to be wrong. It was wrong on the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but pretty much right on intentions and capabilities.
Colin Powell
Image
In the military we also learn principles of war which also work in a corporate setting: How do you concentrate as much of your force as possible on a critical point and take a risk elsewhere? In business that translates into focusing your investment on marketing, sales, or R&D, whichever will give you the greatest return.
Colin Powell
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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