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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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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
Leader
Nations
America
Would
Presume
Iraqi
Distance
Nation

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Actually, there is no more important task for a leader than to pick people. To make sure you have the very best people working for you.
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Have a sense of humor to break the tension in times of great toil.
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I have always admired the Linking Pin theory of management specialist Rensis Likert. It says that in every organization there are leaders who link the lower level to the upper level. What makes somebody an effective link as a leader is that he conveys down everything that above wants and he conveys up everything that below needs.
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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.
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Thee are such horrible weapons. And so no sane leader would ever want to cross that line to using nuclear weapons. And, if you are not going to cross that line, then these things are basically useless.
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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?
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An organization that is not facing up to people who are not getting the job done, is going to have difficulties.
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Diplomacy never stops, and, with or without an election, it never stops.
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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.
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Nobody has ever said in the United States government that we are going to war next month. No decision has been made by the president because, as he said to the United Nations, he wants the United Nations to live up to its responsibilities and he wants Saddam Hussein to cooperate.
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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.
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One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize and to develop talent in others.
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Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.
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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.
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There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
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Only when you have got a clear statement of what you want to achieve, do you ask yourself how you are going to achieve it. In the military we are taught never to go for a single answer, no matter how obvious that might be.
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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.
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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.
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Generally you should act somewhere between P40 and P70, as I call it. Sometime after you have obtained 40 percent of all the information you are liable to get, start thinking in terms of making a decision. When you have about 70 percent of all the information, you probably ought to decide, because you may lose an opportunity in losing time.
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As I've thought about gay marriage, I don't see any reason not to say that [couples] should be able to get married.
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