A pension is nothing more than deferred compensation.

The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish a wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and secure, and protect American families.

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

Big corporations have money and power to make sure every rule breaks their way; people have voices and votes to push back.

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

Americans are fighters. We're tough, resourceful and creative, and if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one - no one can stop us.

Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected. Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to entertain the improbable opportunity that comes looking for you.

Bankruptcy is about financial death and financial rebirth. Bankruptcy is the great American story rewritten. We're a nation of debtors.

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.

Consumers get used to reading and understanding their credit card contracts, their mortgages, their check overdraft agreements, those are good things. That puts power back in the hands of consumers.

You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads that the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

People feel like the system is rigged against them, and here is the painful part, they're right. The system is rigged.

It is not good not to have health insurance; that leaves the family very vulnerable.

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.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along.

America had been a boom-and-bust economy going into the Great Depression - just over and over and over, fortunes were wiped out, ordinary families were crushed under it.

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

What I've learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I've also learned that change is possible - if you fight for it.

A good education is a foundation for a better future.

Others have said it before me. If you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu. And so it is important that we have women in the United States Senate - strong women, women who are there to help advance an agenda that is important to women.

I can tell you that there are lots of ways for people to express their views and their disagreements. For me, the idea of doing it through an anonymous op-ed is about the furthest thing from my mind.

Every officer, every deputy, every agent we lose is one too many. It's a loss to our organizations, of course, it's a loss to our community, and most importantly, it's a devastating loss to the loved ones they leave behind.

If you think about the average person and their interaction with law enforcement, their whole perspective on who we are and what we stand for - our brand, if you will - might be defined by just one interaction or encounter, a traffic stop, a visit to a school, or a response to a call for help.

I left DOJ's leadership back in 2005. At the time, we were still building our national security capabilities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. And we'd made a lot of progress.