Colin Powell Quotes

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

If I accept the job, you will still interfere. I don’t want to fall out with you, as I believe that you are the right man to save the nation at the head of the army.

You have to build a team, but someone's got to lead, and someone's got to be unpopular at times.

I think being able to have follow-through, I think a lot of people who are in charge, that is the one quality that you can't forsake. You can get opinions, but you can't have too many cooks in the kitchen when you're envisioning something.

If I disliked managing, I liked umpiring even less.

It's good to have a leader, otherwise we argue too much.

Now I know how Jack feels when he has told three people that they can each be Secretary of State.

I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.

It's not everybody that can handle firing Denzel Washington or coming to blows and saying, 'This is what's happening because I said so.' Usually, it's the reverse.

You have to make some hard decisions when you're speaker.

I don't like to talk too much about differences between managers.

Commanders-in-chief make really tough decisions.

I looked around. As flock leader, everyone was expecting me to make a decision. Jeb's presence here would bring uncertainty, chaos, probably danger. It would perk up my day.

Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for the authority of rank.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.

The position of power and having to make decisions that you don't necessarily want to make is always good conflict and good drama.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.

One thing that somebody told me is that leadership is a lonely role - some people can do it, and some people can't.

Managers have very tough jobs. I always respected their job but demanded respect in return.

This ship was a league from us, and some of the men would have taken her, and I would not consent to it, and this Moore said I always hindered them making their fortunes. Was that not the reason I struck him? Was there a mutiny on board?

You make decisions and you're not going to please everybody all the time.

Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.

If I'm a leader, I have a mission.

Anytime you get nine people together, whether it's at a party or it's in the conference room of the Supreme Court, you do have to maintain some order, or it does kind of degenerate into squabbling pretty quickly.