Colin Powell Quotes

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.

Effective management always means asking the right question.

As a mayor, my instinct is to really think about how to get something done and not to make the promise unless you have some view of the pathway. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you have to have a pathway there.

You've got to be smart about tackling.

Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind and are then refined and improved by experience.

The game of chess is a metaphor for life... it teaches you strategy and it teaches you the value of knowing where you are, where you want to get to and what obstacles are in the way that you need to navigate in order to get there.

People who consistently win have a clear and thoughtful strategy. They know what they need to do and when they need to do it. They write it down so they stay on course, and avoid any alternative that does not get them closer to the finish line.

Botvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations in ordinary life. He used to call chess a typical inexact problem similar to those which people are always having to solve in everyday life.

The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go.

Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted.

Sometimes I do have something in my head. But, for me, I think it usually ends up being about considering all of the elements, and trying to understand the distance from where we are to where we want to go.

I learned how to order my thoughts, and most important, learned how to develop a plan. I discovered the power of a plan. If you can plan it out, and it seems logical to you, you can do it. And that was the secret to success.

For me, chess is a language, and if it's not my native tongue, it is one I learned via the immersion method at a young age.

"What would I do if?.." By thinking tactically, we can more easily arrive at correct tactical solutions, and practice - even theoretical practice - tends to produce confidence in our solutions which, in turn, makes it easier for us, and thus quicker, to reach a decision.

To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don't need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.

I want to make smart choices.

Because if you're prepared and you know what it takes, it's not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.

The quality of a leader cannot be judged by the answers he gives, but by the questions he asks.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

One of the things Mr. Kennedy taught me was that in laying out a new project, you shouldn't try to cope with every little problem.

What I learned is that policymakers have to force consideration of actions that may not have occurred to them at the time.

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions.

I have some strategical vision, I could calculate some few moves ahead and I have an intellect that is badly missed in the country which is run by generals and colonels.

The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.

Management teams aren't good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers.