Colin Powell Quotes

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Colin Powell

Profession : Statesman

Birth : April 5, 1937

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

Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty.

Colin Powell

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Colin Powell

A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

Colin Powell

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Colin Powell

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

Colin Powell

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Colin Powell

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

Colin Powell

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

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

Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.

Colin Powell

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

Colin Powell

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Colin Powell

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

Colin Powell

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Colin Powell

Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.

Colin Powell

The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.

Colin Powell

Get mad, then get over it.

Colin Powell

Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.

Colin Powell

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Colin Powell