Colin Powell: Quotes about people

Colin Powell is Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Colin Powell: 126   quotes 6   likes

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”

Colin Powell

2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)
Source: On Leadership

People

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort.”

Colin Powell

1990s, My American Journey (1996)

People , Effort

“Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war [Vietnam], vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.”

Colin Powell

1990s, My American Journey (1996)

War , People , Understanding , Season

“The sanctions exist — not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction … And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq.”

Colin Powell

Press remarks http://web.archive.org/web/20020217230935/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa, in Ittihadiya Palace, Cairo (24 February 2001).
2000s

People , Hurt

“Nothing was spun to me... What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us.”

Colin Powell

Powell told David Frost in a BBC television interview
Quoted in Breaking Ranks Larry Wilkerson Attacked the Iraq War. In the Process, He Lost the Friendship of Colin Powell. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/01/19/breaking-ranks-span-classbankheadlarry-wilkerson-attacked-the-iraq-war-in-the-process-he-lost-the-friendship-of-colin-powellspan/d1f359c6-93a0-41c1-beee-2284d6284d47/ Washington Post, by Richard Lei (19 January 2006)
2000s

Intelligence , People , Communication

“The people in my life made me what I am.”

Colin Powell

Source: It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership (2012), p. 279

Life , People