The most valuable investment we can make is in our children's education. When we make education a priority, we give our children opportunity. Opportunity to learn at higher levels than their parents were able to learn; to earn at higher levels than we were able to earn.

Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple.

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, and the appeals process is expensive and cruel to the surviving family members.

We make our own future; we govern ourselves, and to govern is to choose.

We are a people of many different religions and many different faiths. The only way forward in a pluralistic society of diverse faiths such as ours is to have laws that protect and respect the freedom of all, equally.

The Offshore Wind Energy Act could be not only a jobs creator, but also a history maker.

We do ourselves a disservice when some of us cave to the myth that Social Security somehow drives the deficit.

The march of progress must continue.

We live in a very different world than the one that we inherited from our parents and from our grandparents. Times are changing, and states must adapt to win.

God doesn't make mistakes and has made each of us in his own image. God is simply love. There should be no fear in love.

Roads do not upgrade or maintain themselves. Bridges do not repair themselves or rebuild themselves.

We must preserve our planet and grow our economy simultaneously. We cannot become more prosperous without the living systems upon which our prosperity depends.

Civil rights was not an impossible dream. Thousands of brave African Americans stepped forward to make it happen.

Climate change is transforming the world in profound ways that continue to evolve.

Secretary Clinton is perfectly capable of defending her own service in office.

The Center for American Progress rates Maryland as the best state in the nation for women. I couldn't agree more.

Public trust is essential to public safety.

I believe that there are new perspectives that are needed in order for us to resolve the problems that we face as Americans and also the problems we face as people on this planet, and I believe that new perspective and new leadership is needed.

I think the best campaigns are campaigns of ideas and substance.

I'm not opposed to free trade if it's fair trade. But I am opposed to bad trade deals.

I have 15 years of executive experience as a big-city mayor and as a governor.

I've been an executive and a progressive executive with a record of accomplishments.

God is simply love.

The Republicans have kind of painted themselves into a kind of a real demographic corner, if you will.

Democrats haven't been functioning effectively as a party at the national level.

Maryland schools succeed because we have never stopped investing in our students and doing the things that work.

I didn't run for mayor because everything was going great in Baltimore in 1999.

My all-time favourite political promise - more a boast than a promise, really - came from former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, who said in the lead-up to the 1976 Olympics, 'The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby.'

I like Iowa. I know Iowa. I've spent some time in Iowa. Good people in Iowa. It's a great state.

The answers to feeding hungry children is not fewer dollars to feed hungry children, it's to do more. It is to raise the minimum wage. It is to increase, not dismantle, the earned income tax credit. It is to make college more affordable for more middle class families, not more expensive. These are the things that grow our middle class.

I believe marriage is a human right, not a state right.

I think it's really, really important to grow the consensus and to realize that there is always some value that can be shared with another American, on any issue. Starting from those points of common belief and shared values is very, I think, important to forging the consensus that allows these issues to more forward.

Maryland is among the nation's most vulnerable states to the effects of sea level rise from climate change, and we are taking strong action to reduce carbon pollution.

As mayor, I got used to the fact that when you walked out of the house in the morning to pick up the newspaper in your boxers, there could be a camera there.

Marylanders have led the nation in adopting a balanced approach to revenues and investments because we know that in order to maintain and build the #1 public schools in the nation, we had to ask everyone to pay their fair share. We need Congress to do the same.

I believe that we do our country a disservice when we make it harder for new American immigrants to abide by the rules of the road and obtain drivers licenses.

History is full of times when the inevitable front-runner is inevitable right up until he or she is no longer inevitable.

A lot of our Democratic consultants have fallen into the self-defeating prescription that the candidate that runs the most negative ads wins. I have a new theory: Positive is the new negative.

There is no greater ladder into the middle class than education.

We have to raise the minimum wage.

There is no reason that billionaires should crowd us out from our democracy.

I am not surprised that this is a longer bit of work than many of us would have hoped. It is not where any of us would have hoped it is. And I think we need to give credit to the Republicans in Congress who have done everything they can to defeat every jobs bill and slow down the economy.

If workers have less money in their pockets to put food on the table, they will be spending less money; your economy will suffer.

There are more repercussions for a person being a chronic speeding violator in our country, than there is for a big bank being a chronic violator of S.E.C. rules!

I think it would be an extreme poverty indeed if there weren't more than one person willing to compete for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

We have concentrated wealth and capital to such a degree that the vast majority of us don't have the discretionary dollars to make our economy go and grow.

You can't strengthen the ranks of your middle class, you can't strengthen and grow the ranks of your businesses and family-owned businesses, unless you are fiscally responsible.

If a bank's too big so that it can't fail without hurting our economy, well then, it's too big.

Maryland first allowed early voting during the 2010 primary elections. In November 2012, more than 16 percent of registered voters in Maryland cast their ballots during the early voting period, and some polling places, particularly in our larger jurisdictions, witnessed early voting lines that were hours long.

Some people might look at Baltimore, from afar, and see nothing but hopelessness. I see, in Baltimore, tremendously good and compassionate people, and a tremendous opportunity to save a lot a lives.