Top 302 Quotes & Sayings by Elizabeth Warren - Page 2

I have voted against only one of President Obama's nominees: Michael Froman, a Citigroup alumnus who is currently storming the halls of Congress as U.S. Trade Representative pushing trade deals that threaten to undermine financial regulation, workers' rights, and environmental protections.

I learned early on what debt means, how vulnerable it makes people, what the security of owning a home means.

I think a lot of Americans are not sure which side Washington is on: the side of banks or the side of the people.

My brothers and I grew up on stories about our grandfather building one-room schoolhouses and about our grandparents' courtship and their early lives together in Indian Territory.

All I can say is I was a lot more discreet as a candidate than I was in real life. Can I say that? Maybe it's indiscreet to talk about discretion.

I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking, 'What am I going to do?' My husband's view of it was, 'Stay home... We'll have more children; you'll love this.' And I was very restless about it.

If large financial institutions can break the law and accumulate million in profits - and, if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits - they do not have much incentive to follow the law.

We need a new model: If you can't explain it, you can't sell it.

Markets work when people can evaluate the prices and risks of different products, then pick the ones that work best for them. But when the terms of the deal are hidden, competition doesn't work. And customers aren't the only ones who are hurt.

People who graduate are more resilient financially, and they weather economic downturns better than people who don't graduate. And, throughout their lives, people who graduate are more likely to be economically secure, more likely to be healthy, and more likely to live longer. Face it: A college degree puts a lot in your corner.

Groupthink can become a serious issue - old ideas stay around after they're useful, and new ideas too often don't get a fair hearing.

We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.

Wall Street banks have the right to express their views to lawmakers and regulators through lobbying, but the law is clear: If they want to influence lawmakers, they must disclose their lobbying expenditures.

For many women, the on-time payments of domestic support obligations are essential to economic survival.

The broken consumer credit market had to be repaired by making sure that consumers had the right information and could use it effectively. That meant consolidating the bloated patchwork of ineffective agencies and regulations so that a single agency could act as a voice for consumers.

Writing laws based on an abstract theory, rather than reality, is a dangerous undertaking.

If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know. If the big banks don't expect to buy influence and are merely making charitable contributions, then their shareholders have a right to know. Either way, there's no excuse for keeping these payments secret.

The Postal Service is huge - employing more than a half million people - and its history is long and complicated.

With the right sources of funding and some smart, strategic thinking about how to force non-banks to follow the same rules as other lenders, the entire landscape of consumer lending would change.

I don't want happy-face conclusions. I want the truth.

We shouldn't be profiting from our students who are drowning in debt while giving a great deal to the banks. That's just wrong.

If your plan is to put a product out there that people can see and understand, then by golly, we're going to get along just fine.

I'm not going to talk about who I voted for.

It doesn't make me happy to go back and talk about how great high school was.

I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore. I was a Republican at a time when I felt like there was a problem that the markets were under a lot more strain. It worried me whether or not the government played too activist a role.

The core of my career is my teaching and my writing.

People with banking experience haven't all flocked to the biggest banks; community banks and regional banks, along with smaller trading houses and credit unions, have some very talented people.

I graduated law school nine months pregnant and didn't take a job.

I was 30 before I realized, you know, that I probably was an accident. These things just suddenly hit you one day.

When billionaire car dealers or manufacturers pay for ambassadorships, at least they pay with money earned by selling something of value.

I had to make a choice - recede into the academic world, or wade into politics.

I will work my heart out to earn the trust of the people of Massachusetts.

With post offices and postal workers already on the ground, USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don't have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.

We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged.

I'm willing to throw my body in front of the bus to stop bad ideas.

Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety.

Wall Street's outsized influence in our nation's capital is something I've talked about for a long time - long before I even thought about running for office. But where I see a problem - an infestation, really - a lot of others in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, seem to see government working just fine.

Too often, people get jobs based on who they know - not what they know.

Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family's already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy.

There is one thing Anthony Weiner and I agree on: there are a lot of smart, hard-working people in the financial industry.

Consumer banking - selling debt to middle class families - has been a gold mine.

I made it real clear to the business community - if your plan for innovation is to trick people, is to fool them, is not to tell them the truth about the price, then you're right: I'm going to be right in the way.

Pundits talk about 'populist rage' as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class.

We can't go out and tell ourselves we've done good if we haven't.

I was in a high school where everybody was a click better off.

I never sought nor gained personal benefit in school or job applications based on my heritage.

Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.

Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most - who struggle to make ends meet - too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.

Cops on the beat can stop problems before the damage spreads.

If you don't talk about families, then it's easy to disembody subprime mortgages and asset securitization and unemployment rates without remembering that every one of those numbers is a million families.

When she was 16, my grandmother, Hannie Reed, drove a wagon in the Oklahoma land rush.

Because policymakers often rely on think tanks' research when crafting laws and regulations, it's critical to know whether these organizations are truly independent.

I'm really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.

I have to prove myself to everybody.

Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women.

Are you ready to fight for good jobs and and a solid level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world? Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I am ready. You're ready.

You have to remember: what are incomes to banks are outgoes to families.

The women who file for bankruptcy played by all the rules, but they are still in economic freefall.

If the notion on this is we're going to elect somebody to the United States Senate so they can be the 100th least senior person in there and be polite, and somewhere in their fourth or fifth year do some bipartisan bill that nobody cares about, don't vote for me.

We need to hold Wall Street accountable for issuing the kinds of deceptive loans that nearly brought our economy to its knees in 2008.