Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Colin Powell

Get mad, then get over it.

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

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

If a leader doesn't convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they'll start to fall down and get depressed.

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

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

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

Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.

Colin Powell

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Colin Powell

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.

Colin Powell

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

Colin Powell

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

Colin Powell

I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

Colin Powell

It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

Colin Powell

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Colin Powell

We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.

Colin Powell

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

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

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

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

Colin Powell

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

Colin Powell

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

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

In other words, don't expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem, let's go and get it'.

Colin Powell

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.

Colin Powell

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

Colin Powell

I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

Colin Powell

Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff.

Colin Powell

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

Colin Powell

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

Colin Powell

I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.

Colin Powell

You can't just have slogans, you can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it's going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.

Colin Powell

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.

Colin Powell

It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.

Colin Powell

Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.

Colin Powell

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

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

Colin Powell

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

Colin Powell

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

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

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

It's not just a matter of whether you support Obama or Romney. It's who they have coming with them. I always keep my powder dry, as they say in the military.

Colin Powell

It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.

Colin Powell

You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.

Colin Powell

Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

Colin Powell

So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you're going to win.

Colin Powell

The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.

Colin Powell

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, 'Gee, isn't that wonderful?'

Colin Powell

Economy's got to get moving, we've got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.

Colin Powell

There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.

Colin Powell

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

Colin Powell

I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.

Colin Powell

I respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.

Colin Powell

Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.

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

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Colin Powell

Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That's part of the normal diplomatic relations.

Colin Powell

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

Colin Powell

It was the Congress that imposed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.

Colin Powell

It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'

Colin Powell

Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

Colin Powell

I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.

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

We stand ready to help, but that help can only come when North Korea has abandoned its programs to achieve a nuclear weapons capability, something that the international community thought it had done years ago,

Colin Powell

We didn't deal with Yasser Arafat when we were putting the road map together, and so his comments don't mean a whole lot to me.

Colin Powell

Unless North Korea ends its program, it cannot expect the benefits of relations with the outside world.

Colin Powell

We have no intention of invading North Korea or taking hostile action against North Korea,

Colin Powell

The regime only allows interviews with inspectors in the presence of an Iraqi official, a minder, ... The official Iraqi organization charged with facilitating inspections announced, announced publicly and announced ominously that, 'Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed.'

Colin Powell

ways to communicate with the people of Iran to convince them that the policies their leaders have been following are inappropriate.

Colin Powell

China has a role to play and I hope China will play that role,

Colin Powell

has the interest of the Haitian people at heart.

Colin Powell

I think we have stabilized things right now to the point where we can continue working the diplomatic and political track and persuade everyone that is the direction we should continue to move.

Colin Powell

It is not up to Iraq to dictate the conditions to the United Nations, but for the United Nations to dictate the conditions to Iraq, ... If the United Nations does not act, then the United States, joined by other willing nations, must act.

Colin Powell

Whether it should or should not have been in the speech is something we can certainly discuss and debate,

Colin Powell

I would not presume from this distance, nor would America presume to say who should be the leader of the Iraqi nation.

Colin Powell

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.

Colin Powell

Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!

Colin Powell

The most effective means of ensuring the government's accountability to the people is an aggressive, free, challenging, untrusting press.

Colin Powell

When you wrestle with a pig, he has fun, and you just end up dirty.

Colin Powell

It is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.

Colin Powell

Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.

Colin Powell

No one has done more to prevent conflict - no one has made a greater sacrifice for the cause for Peace - than you, America's proud missile submarine family. You stand tall among our heroes of the Cold War.

Colin Powell

Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together

Colin Powell

I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.

Colin Powell

A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.

Colin Powell

I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world.

Colin Powell

I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.

Colin Powell

The ties that bind us are stronger than the occasional stresses that separate us.

Colin Powell

There is no such thing as an unimportant person in an organization.

Colin Powell

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.

Colin Powell

I happen to hold a bachelor of science degree in geology... And my greatest contribution to the field of science is that I never entered it.

Colin Powell

The president's personal staff has a unique role

Colin Powell

For all the hardship, I was still excited to be on the trail, testing my endurance, feeling especially alive as strength and fatigue flowed alternately through my limbs.

Colin Powell

Leadership is solving problems.

Colin Powell

Terrorism really flourishes in areas of poverty, despair and hopelessness, where people see no future

Colin Powell

The bottom line in all of it is that, in life, it's all about people.

Colin Powell

Have a vision. Be demanding.

Colin Powell

Have a sense of humor to break the tension in times of great toil.

Colin Powell

I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote,

Colin Powell

People get work done, not buildings, not staffs in a generic sense, and not plans, but people

Colin Powell

The United States stands willing to work with a transformed Palestinian Authority with new leaders coming to the front.

Colin Powell

The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it

Colin Powell

No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic.

Colin Powell

The media only report stupid or careless answers, not stupid or unfair questions.

Colin Powell

The claims made about Iraq's WMD capabilities before the invasion were inaccurate, wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading.

Colin Powell

Experts often possess more data than judgment.

Colin Powell

One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop.

Colin Powell

As I've thought about gay marriage, I don't see any reason not to say that [couples] should be able to get married.

Colin Powell

The greatest gifts my parents gave to me...were their unconditional love and a set of values.

Colin Powell

I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.

Colin Powell

I don't know who all of his advisers are, but I've seen some of the names and some of them are quite far to the right. And sometimes they might be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought.

Colin Powell

Trust is the essence of Leadership.

Colin Powell

Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know.

Colin Powell

If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.

Colin Powell

You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy.

Colin Powell

It is not possible to rule out anything because we don't know what will happen.

Colin Powell

Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.

Colin Powell

Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find.

Colin Powell

It is good if your enemy underestimates you. The dumber they think you are the more surprised they are when you kill them.

Colin Powell

Always do your best. Somebody is watching you.

Colin Powell

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is "no." That's not America.

Colin Powell

Even though the numbers are down with respect to favorability ratings, at every embassy and consular office tomorrow morning that we have, people will be lined up, and they'll all say the same thing, "We want to go to America." So we're still the leader of the world that wants to be free. We are still the inspiration of the rest of the world. And we can come back.

Colin Powell

But you have to understand, American democracy is not like the system you have. We're not an ocean liner that sails across the ocean from point A to point B at 30 knots. That's not American democracy. American democracy is kind of like a life raft that bobs around the ocean all the time. Your feet are always wet. Winds are always blowing. You're cold. You're wet. You're uncomfortable -- but you never sink.

Colin Powell

Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.

Colin Powell

Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.

Colin Powell

You should never be so involved with your position/job that when the position is gone your entire self image is gone with it.

Colin Powell

President's personal staff has a unique role. They're his intimate personal advisers, and the tradition and the precedent has been, even when I was national security adviser, that people in that position do not testify before the Congress. They talk to the Congress. They have meetings with the Congress.

Colin Powell

Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard. Learn from the pros, observe them, seek them out as mentors and partners. But remember that even the pros may have leveled out in terms of their learning and skills. Sometimes even the pros can become complacent and lazy.

Colin Powell

America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.

Colin Powell

Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude

Colin Powell

Whenever you start-give it your best. The opportunities are there to be anything you want to be. But wanting to be someone isn't enough; dreaming about it isn't enough; thinking about it isn't enough. You've got to study for it, work for it, fight for it with all your heart and soul, because nobody is going to hand it to you.

Colin Powell

The United States presents a value system to the world that is based on democracy, based on economic freedom, based on individual rights for men and women, .. I think that is what makes us such a draw for nations around the world. People come to the United States to be educated, to become Americans. We are a country of countries and we touch every country, and every country in world touches us.

Colin Powell

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.

Colin Powell

Service-learning is a particularly fertile way of involving young people in community service, because it ties helping others to what they are learning in the classroom. It enables them to apply academic disciplines to practical, everyday problems. In the process, it provides a compelling answer to the adolescent's perennial question, 'Why do I need to learn this stuff?

Colin Powell

It is not the role of the United States to dictate change, but to enter into discussions with our friends.

Colin Powell

Let's not forget that Congress bears a lot of responsibility for many of the problems we have now

Colin Powell

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

Colin Powell

Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.

Colin Powell

Every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes

Colin Powell

If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.

Colin Powell

The best method of overcoming obstacles is the team method

Colin Powell

The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.

Colin Powell

টমাস এডিসন বা টমাস আলভা এডিসন (ফেব্রুয়ারি ১১, ১৮৪৭ - অক্টোবর ১৮, ১৯৩১) ছিলেন মার্কিন উদ্ভাবক এবং ব্যবসায়ী।

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টমাস এডিসন বা টমাস আলভা এডিসন (ফেব্রুয়ারি ১১, ১৮৪৭ - অক্টোবর ১৮, ১৯৩১) ছিলেন মার্কিন উদ্ভাবক এবং ব্যবসায়ী।

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