Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Colin Powell Quotes
Social UnrestInequalityDiscontentProtest What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.
Partisanship It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.
TechnologyCommunicationCollaborationCompromiseAdaptability My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don't share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.
Self-RelianceProblem SolvingIndependenceEffort Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
American LeadershipGlobal Dominance Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.
VotingDecision MakingInformed Choice As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.
DiplomacyPeaceReconciliationConflict We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we've had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I've taken.
ExcellenceHabitAttitudeAchievementPerseverance 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.
Time ManagementSelectivityImbalanceEfficiencyFocus 90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.
EducationSafetyValueResponsibilityOpportunity Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty.
ResilienceProblem SolvingLeadershipFailure In other words, don't expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem, let's go and get it'.
EgoHumilitySelf-awareness Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
EducationCitizenshipGovernmentResponsibilityFuture Generations We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.
Religious FreedomAmerican IdentityOpportunityAspiration Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?
OptimismHopePerspectiveEncouragement It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
HierarchyTitlesStructureEffectiveness Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
Military StrategyEffectivenessProgress 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.
SacrificeRenunciationSelflessnessBurden of ResponsibilitySupport Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
RegulationInvestment IncentivesRisk ManagementBalance What we have to find is the right level of regulation of our financial system so that it has the incentive to invest in things, but at the same time, it is sufficiently regulated so it can't get in the kind of trouble that we have seen in the past and we have seen recently.
Military InvolvementResponsibilityPreparationGeopoliticsGovernment When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.
Religious PerspectivesToleranceAcceptanceIndividual Conscience I respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.
DiplomacyConflict ResolutionInternational Relations Russia isn't going to start a war. They can't afford it. I think Mr. Putin can be dealt with if we stop screaming at him. You can work with the guy. You just have to know who he is.
ActivismPolitical SystemEconomyReform 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?'
EconomyUnemploymentPolitics Economy's got to get moving, we've got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.
MarriageLegal RightsPartnershipsLegal ProtectionsSociety In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that's called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.
HopeEducationEqualityFutureChild Development Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
ReflectionUncertaintyLife ChoicesHumility People have asked me, 'What would you have done if you hadn't gone into the Army?' I'd say I'd probably be a bus driver. I don't know.
EgoIdentitySeparation Of SelfResilienceSelf-Confidence Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.
BeliefWinningConfidence So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you're going to win.
AgendaBeliefUnityClarityEffectiveness You can't just have slogans, you can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it's going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.
LeadershipWinning AttitudeSetbacksResilienceInfluence I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
IntoleranceAdvocacyReligious TolerancePolitics In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there's a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.
ResponsibilityGovernanceConsequenceOwnership You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.
LeadershipProblem SolvingTrustEmpathy 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.
Global EngagementNational Interest The idea that putting Americans 'first' requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.
CompromiseConsensusProgress But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.
IntentionResolveCapabilityPossibilityOutcomes I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.
WarPrudencePurposePublic Support War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
EvaluationJudgmentPreparationComprehensive AnalysisDecision-Making I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.
GenerosityInternational AidContribution The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.
Early Childhood DevelopmentHealth EquityYouth DevelopmentDisparitiesEquality High-quality early-childhood programs and health coverage have expanded, and the number of mentoring relationships for at-risk youth has risen dramatically. That progress is encouraging, but it's not evenly distributed.
DiplomacyValueInvestmentNational Identity Our diplomacy and development budget is not just about reducing spending and finding efficiencies. We need a frank conversation about what we stand for as that 'shining city on a hill.' And that conversation begins by acknowledging that we can't do it on the cheap.
ReflectionLearningSelf-Assessment The Army will take its lessons learned. They're excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.