Colin Powell

On the part of the Cambridge Police Department, once they felt they had to bring Dr. Gates out of the house and to handcuff him, I would have thought at that point some adult supervision would have stepped in and said, 'OK, look, it is his…

A teaching point for young people, especially. Not for Dr. Gates. But for young people, especially, is when the police are looking into something, and if you're involved in it in one way or another, cooperate. Don't make the situation more…

Capital is a coward; money flees uncertainty and corruption. To entice capital in and then keep it in, governments must recognize private property rights, deeds of trust, and the sanctity of contract, and they must enforce these rights…

As General Powell says, this is not a crisis, it is a catastrophe.

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 them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

It's a tribute to the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King because this is what it was all about as far as he was concerned. That people should be judged on the content of their character, and not the color of their skin.

Is this really the kind of party that we want to be?

To sort of throw in this little Muslim connection, you know, he's a Muslim and a terrorist. And it was taking root. That kind of negativity troubled me.

If Obama was a Muslim, so what?

If Republicans needed permission to cross the aisle and vote for this Democrat, Barack Obama, nobody could provide more powerful permission slip than Colin Powell did two weeks before that election.

I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which this is the job of the vice president.

He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world, on to the world stage, on the American stage. And, for that…