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Decision-making is lonely.

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
Lonely
Decision
Making

More quotes by Colin Powell

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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
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There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.
Colin Powell
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The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.
Colin Powell
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No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic.
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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Almost invariably, whoever doesn't win the argument is going to be unhappy.
Colin Powell
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A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.
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
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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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Politics is different, because the mission is always to get the necessary votes. A good politician goes through everything in terms of mission and vision, and resourcing, but at the end of the day politicians have to make compromises in order to achieve consensus.
Colin Powell
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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
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Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude
Colin Powell
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My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don't share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.
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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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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So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
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
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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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Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
Colin Powell
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Good and solid analysis and a formal way of looking at a problem [are the core ingredients of good decisions].
Colin Powell