Colin Powell Quotes

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

Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

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.

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.

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.

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

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.

You’re not just voting for an individual, in my judgment, you’re voting for an agenda. You’re voting for a platform. You’re voting for a political philosophy.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

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

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

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