"90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world. " - Colin Powell
"Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. " - Colin Powell
"Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age. " - 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
"Experts often possess more data than judgment. " - Colin Powell
"Get mad, then get over it. " - Colin Powell
"Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up. " - 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
"Have a vision. Be demanding. " - Colin Powell
"I can think of nothing that Saddam Hussein can do diplomatically (to avoid war). I think that time is now over. He's had his chance, he has had many chances over the last 12 years and he has blown every one of those chances. " - Colin Powell
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches. " - Colin Powell
"I try to be the same person I was yesterday. " - Colin Powell
"I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world. " - Colin Powell
"I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it. " - 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
"It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. " - 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
"Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.' " - Colin Powell
"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant. " - Colin Powell
"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. " - Colin Powell
"Remain calm. Be kind. " - 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
"The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort. " - Colin Powell
"The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power. " - Colin Powell
"The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international efforts in the world. " - Colin Powell
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. " - Colin Powell
"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
"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
"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
"We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in. " - Colin Powell
"When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own. " - Colin Powell
"Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind? " - Colin Powell
"You don't know what you can get away with until you try. " - Colin Powell
