Quotes

“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

“Economy's got to get moving, we've got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.” Colin Powell

“I try to be the same person I was yesterday.” Colin Powell

“Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.” Colin Powell

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

“So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you're going to win.” Colin Powell

“Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.” Colin Powell

“Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That's part of the normal diplomatic relations.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.” Colin Powell

“I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.” Colin Powell

“I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.” Colin Powell

“I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“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.” Colin Powell

“It was the Congress that imposed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.” Colin Powell

“It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.” Colin Powell

“Just hit my 75th birthday, I'm feeling great!” Colin Powell

“Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff.” Colin Powell

“The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.” Colin Powell

“There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.” Colin Powell

“Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.” Colin Powell

“We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.” Colin Powell

“We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.” Colin Powell

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” Thomas Paine

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” Thomas Paine