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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Colin Powell

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
Colin Powell

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Colin Powell

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

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.
Colin Powell

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

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

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