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'r...”

“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...”

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

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

“When Jerry Springer thinks you've gone too far, my friends, you have gone too far.”

“President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he's a liar.”

“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...”

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

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist.”

“90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.”

“Trump has no sense of shame.”

“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.”

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

“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.”

“In the last several years, I have been troubled by the right shift of the Republican party too far to the right.”

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

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

“There's not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.”