Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Colin Powell
Colin Powell Quotes
51 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
If they are destroying a flag that belongs to someone else, that's a prosecutable crime. If it is a flag they own, I really don't want to amend the Constitution to prosecute someone for foolishly desecrating their own property. We should condemn them and pity them instead.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
The policies — determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live — were an antidemocratic disgrace … I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed … managed to wangle slots in reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war [Vietnam], vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Dear Senator Leahy, thank you for your recent letter asking my views on the proposed flag protection amendment. I love our flag, our Constitution and our country with a love that has no bounds. I defended all three for 35 years as a soldier and was willing to give my life in their defense.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
We are rightfully outraged when anyone attacks or desecrates our flag. Few Americans do such things and when they do they are subject to the rightful condemnation of their fellow citizens. They may be destroying a piece of cloth, but they do no damage to our system of freedom which tolerates such desecration.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Finally, I shudder to think of the legal morass we will create trying to implement the body of law that will emerge from such an amendment.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
There's also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
I understand how strongly so many of my fellow veterans and citizens feel about the flag and I understand the powerful sentiment in state legislatures for such an amendment. I feel the same sense of outrage. But I step back from amending the Constitution to relieve that outrage. The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous. I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
If I were a member of Congress, I would not vote for the proposed amendment and would fully understand and respect the views of those who would. For or against, we all love our flag with equal devotion.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
The sanctions exist — not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction … And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq.
Colin Powell
Source
Report...
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
1
2
Quote of the day
What counts is what you do with your money, not where it came from.
Merton Miller
Colin Powell
Creative Commons
Born:
April 5, 1937
Died:
October 18, 2021
(aged 84)
Bio:
Colin Luther Powell was an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under U.S. President George W. Bush.
Known for:
It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership (2012)
My American Journey (1995)
A Soldier's Way (1995)
Saxon Quest; Calamity in the Dark Ages (2011)
Most used words:
flag
people
amendment
understand
americans
constitution
purpose
accomplish
action
policies
leadership
country
war
equal
love
Colin Powell on Wikipedia
Colin Powell works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Colin Powell Quotes
Colin Powell Short Quotes
Quotes about Colin Powell
American Politician Quotes
Politician Quotes
20th-century Politician Quotes
Related Authors
Condoleezza Rice
American Political scientist
George W. Bush
American President
Dick Cheney
American Businessman
Hillary Clinton
American Politician
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes