Colin Powell Quotes

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue.

Actions will be judged according to intentions.

We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.... The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday.

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

When you're offstage, that's the footprint. That's the man God's gonna judge.

Those who invoke history will certainly be heard by history. And they will have to accept its verdict.

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.

Before you do anything, you need to know if it's right or wrong.

Every man should be considered as having a right to the character which he deserves; that is, to be spoken of according to his actions.

Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.

It's up to history to judge.

Character is destiny, and politicians usually get the scandals they deserve, with a sense of inevitability about them.

Regardless of what society says, we can't go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

Our concerns aren't always appropriate or morally elevated.

Consider what you think justice requires, and decide accordingly. But never give your reasons; for your judgment will probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong.

I would not hold that we must judge by the favorable or adverse result alone whether an undertaking was just or unjust.

It's not fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran. How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?

I don’t want you to be a laughing stock … a circus where we just throw people out the minute they make a tough decision. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.

If you have to pay money to have the right thing done, it is only just and fair to do it.

If we started prosecuting people for sin, we’d all be in jail.

My belief is that the permanent estimate of what a general does in the field is fixed by the "cloud of witnesses" who have been with him in the field; and that, relying on these, he who has been right needs not to fear.

To judge … any man … simply from his own point of view, is weak and illogical. History judges the man from its point of view. It condemns or applauds the point of view itself. The point of view of a malefactor is not to excuse robbery and murder. Nor is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in favor of the evil-doer.