Top 77 Elizabeth Warren Quotes

I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it’s business as usual. I don’t understand how they can’t see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars.

‘Middle class’ used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer.

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.

It is easy when you are successful to think that you did it all by yourself and to forget that you didn’t. You got here because a lot of things broke your way. You were lucky enough to be born into a family that could afford to take care of you well.

In 1978, we adopted a new Bankruptcy Code in the United States, and a principal part of this was designed to adjust to the new corporation, to find ways to let a corporation that had gotten into financial trouble reorganize itself. A big part of the selling point on this bankruptcy law was, ‘It will preserve jobs.’

I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own – nobody.

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 learned something important in my race against Senator Brown: voters want political leaders who are willing to break the partisan gridlock. They want fewer closed-door roadblocks and more public votes on legislation that could improve their lives.

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.

I got married at 19 and graduated from a commuter college in Texas that cost $50 a semester. The way I see it, I’m a janitor’s daughter who became a public school teacher, a professor, and a United States Senator. America is truly a country of opportunity!

A pension is nothing more than deferred compensation.

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.

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

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.

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.

Regulators all meet with Goldman Sachs executives and employees day after day after day. They don’t see the people who get tricked, the people who get cheated, the people who get fooled by the products that Goldman turns out.

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.

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.

We’ve seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies – you name it, there’s been a filibuster.

Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family’s Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation – what kid would?

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.

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

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

Homeowners refinance their loans when interest rates go down. Businesses refinance their loans.

I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us.

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

The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message. It tells people that one – and only one – point of view will dominate economic policymaking.

Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.

I know what I am in Washington to do: I’m here to fight for hardworking families.

There are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.

Credit card agreements run as long as 30 pages, and it’s 30 pages of largely incomprehensible text.

Like a lot of you, I grew up in a family on the ragged edges of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house.

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.

What we collectively decide about how to bail out our economy, how to pull our economy out of a ditch and what rules we put in place to make sure this problem does not happen again, will shape our country for the next 50 years. This is it.

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.

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.

I’ll work with anyone – and I really do mean that – Democrat, Republican, independent, Libertarian, contrarian, vegetarian.

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.

You can’t predict it all. People will tell you to plan things out as best you can. They will tell you to focus. They will tell you to follow your dreams. They will all be right.

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

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

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.

I’m not someone who thinks Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are always right.

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

How do you think we build a future? I think we build it by investing in our kids and investing in education.

Some economists estimate that for every family that goes bankrupt, there are about 15 more who are in the same amount of financial trouble and would profit from bankruptcy but just haven’t filed.

No matter how good a deal sounds, if your name goes on the bottom line, you need to understand it and be sure you’ll be able to pay. You are responsible for yourself forever. Forever.

Marathon Day in Boston and all of Massachusetts, it’s Patriot’s Day, and it’s a big celebration for us. It’s a day when we’re kind of the whole world’s city there.

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

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.

It is critical that the American people, and not just their financial institutions, be represented at the negotiating table.

There are lots of families who – who make irresponsible purchases. There are also a lot of families who have debt on credit cards because they use those credit cards to pay for medical bills.

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

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

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