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Colin Powell

Colin Powell Quotes

Former United States Secretary of State

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Famous Colin Powell Quotes

“In the military we are always looking for ways to leverage up our forces. Having greater communications and command and control over your forces than your enemy has over his is a force multiplier. Having greater logistics capability than the enemy is a force multiplier. Having better-trained commanders is a force multiplier. Perpetual optimism, believing in yourself, believing in your purpose, believing you will prevail, and demonstrating passion and confidence is a force multiplier. If you believe and have prepared your followers, the followers will believe.”

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Author:Colin Powell
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“I'll tell you what they're all going to face, whichever one of them becomes president on January 21st of 2009. They will face a military force - a United States military force that cannot sustain - continually sustain 140,000 people deployed in Iraq and the 20-odd or 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan and our other deployments.”

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“We want to approach this in a multilateral way, talking with our friends, consulting with our security council colleagues in the United Nations, hoping to find a way to solve this peacefully, but at the same time recognising that unless the threat of military force is there, Iraq will not disarm.”

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“In the army we are drilled into execution and then supervision, to make sure everything goes the way you planned it. But there is another thing that we do in the military, that I think perhaps isn't done enough in corporate life: As soon as you have made that decision, you start on the contingency planning. Because there is, as we like to say, a thinking, breathing enemy out there, who is not going to let you do just what you want.”

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“I worked with the Nato Military Committee. The Head of the Luxembourg Armed Forces had equal standing with me, and I had to respect that. He was the leader of the armed forces of a sovereign country. I had to make sure he never thought that I was looking down on them, merely because they had less power than we did. With that kind of approach you can develop bonds of trust. I tried to do the same thing with my colleagues when I was Secretary of State.”

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

HardDreamRealityInspirationMotivationalSuccessfulMagicMilitaryHard WorkSucceedDeterminationArmyPersistenceSweatSuccessful PeopleDreams Come TrueFollow Your DreamsDreams Do Come TrueDreams And RealityHardworkHardworkingDetermination And SuccessWill And DeterminationJust A DreamDetermination MotivationalSmall DreamsPursue Your DreamsMotivational WorkHard Work Pays OffDetermination PerseveranceDetermination And PersistenceWorking LifeBelieve In Your DreamsWork To Be DoneGreat DeterminationInspirational DeterminationLife DreamDream RealityFollowing My DreamsInspirational DreamHardwork And DeterminationSweat And TearsHard Work SuccessTrue DreamsHard Work MotivationalLife DeterminationCourage And DeterminationLife And DreamsInspirational Hard WorkMotivation And Hard WorkHard Work And SuccessDreams Can Come TrueHard Work And DeterminationAmazing JobFamous Hard WorkingDedication And DeterminationHard Work And PersistenceDetermination By Famous PeopleLuck And Hard WorkBlood And SweatResults Of Hard WorkStrong Determination
Author: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.”

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Book:My American Journey
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“When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.”

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“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.”

ProblemLeadershipLeaderMilitaryArmySoldierGreat LeaderVisionariesLeadership TrainingWorld LeaderBusiness LeadershipBeing A LeaderInspiring LeaderEffective LeadershipBest LeaderTrue LeadershipInspirational MilitaryLeadership SkillsGreatest LeadershipFuture LeadersLeadership RolesGreat MilitaryMilitary LeaderLeadership IntegrityLeadership TeamworkMilitary LeadershipVisionary LeadersGreatest MilitaryStrategic LeadershipVisionary LeadershipWise LeadersLost ConfidenceFailure Of LeadershipGreat ArmyLeading OnGreatness And LeadershipEducational LeadersLeadership StyleLack Of Leadership
Book:My American Journey
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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.”

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Author:Colin Powell
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“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, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own lives in peace.”

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“My two Jamaican cousins ... were studying engineering. 'That's where the money is,' Mom advised. ... I was to be an engineering major, despite my allergy to science and math. ... Those who preceded me at CCNY include the polio vaccine discoverer, Dr. Jonas Salk ... and eight Nobel Prize winners. ... In class, I stumbled through math, fumbled through physics, and did reasonably well in, and even enjoyed, geology. All I ever looked forward to was ROTC. Autobiographical comments on his original reason for going to the City College of New York, where he shortly turned to his military career.”

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Author:Colin Powell
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