It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership

by Colin Powell

“try not to break it.” But if there’s a chance that you might break it, if you plan to break it, or if there’s no way you can avoid breaking it, consider the costs of ownership and have plans ready to deal with the possible consequences of breaking it.

Some items that I had to reject came from the Vice President, who urged us to tilt our presentation back toward Scooter Libby’s by adding assertions that had been rejected months earlier to links between Iraq and 9/11 and other terrorist acts. These assertions weren’t backed by what the intelligence community believed and stood behind.

If we had known there were no WMDs, there would have been no war.

drive through life looking through the front windshield and not the rearview mirror.

The more outrageous, misanthropic, and narcissistic the behavior, the more it sells.

Don’t make your public life your full-time occupation, and hide frequently from the madding crowd.

Every audience is different, and every one requires study. Who are they? What do they do? What’s their purpose? What do they need from me? I have to orient my speech to them.

What a country . . . still the same country that gave my immigrant parents that open door and welcome ninety years ago. We must never forget that has been our past; it is certainly our present and future.

After four-and-a-half no-cost, undistinguished academic years, the CCNY administration took pity on me and allowed my ROTC A grades to remain in my overall average. This brought my average up to a smidgen above 2.0, high enough to qualify for graduation. To the great relief of the faculty, I was passed off to the U.S. Army.

Education like the one I got at CCNY was how the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free were integrated into America’s social and economic life. Education was—and still is—the Golden Door.