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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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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
Must
Strategist
Even
Occasionally
Account
Accounts
Presence
Greatest
Enemy
Take
Strategists
More quotes by Colin Powell
Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
Colin Powell
We would like to see new leaders come forward who would be accountable and responsible, who would succeed in ending the terror and the violence. And it is up to the Palestinian people to judge who those new leaders should be.
Colin Powell
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
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.
Colin Powell
We want to approach this in a multilateral way, talking with our friends, consulting with our security council colleagues in the United Nations, hoping to find a way to solve this peacefully, but at the same time recognising that unless the threat of military force is there, Iraq will not disarm.
Colin Powell
Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
Colin Powell
I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.
Colin Powell
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
Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.
Colin Powell
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
Colin Powell
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
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.
Colin Powell
The great leaders that I have worked with are people who have a good sense of empathy with other people. They can walk a factory floor, or walk through a battalion and smell if there's something wrong.
Colin Powell
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.
Colin Powell
We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.
Colin Powell
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
I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.
Colin Powell
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
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
I think the American people want to see what we want to see, and that is for the Iraqi people to have a free, open, fair election, for their forces to be built up, for our reconstruction money to be used well, and for Iraqi security forces to take over so we can start bringing our troops home.
Colin Powell