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Almost invariably, whoever doesn't win the argument is going to be unhappy.

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
Doesn
Going
Invariably
Whoever
Unhappy
Argument
Almost
Winning

More quotes by Colin Powell

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I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.
Colin Powell
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Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
Colin Powell
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One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.
Colin Powell
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The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it
Colin Powell
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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.
Colin Powell
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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.
Colin Powell
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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.
Colin Powell
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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
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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.
Colin Powell
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With respect to where we are now, we have a voluntary army. And if we ever go back to conscription I hope that at time it will be the kind of conscription that was put in at the end of the Vietnam War. And that is, everybody is equally liable to be called to serve the nation in time of conflict.
Colin Powell
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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
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With respect to our friends in the [Iraq] region, each has its own system, each will have to make its own judgment as to whether it will change, how fast it will change, and we hope that we can help influence them as to how change comes about and what change might be better for them than other forms of change.
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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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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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
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Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed.
Colin Powell
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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
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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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Sometimes what my analytical mind says to me is not what I'll do.
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