Henry Paulson

“I am suspicious of career engineers, people that plan it out every step of the way.”

“The country is polarized. And I think part of it - it is not just social media. We get our facts from different places. People self-select with so many different cable channels and so many sources. I think that is a huge problem.”

“When you run a company, you want to hand it off in better shape than you found it. In the same way, just as we shouldn't leave our children or grandchildren with mountains of national debt and unsustainable entitlement programs, we shouldn't leave them with the economic and environmental costs of climate change.”

“We need a new tax system. We need entitlement reform. We need immigration reform. These are not easy things. But it is going to take our political system working better.”

“I've been through periods of stress, turbulence in the market for over the course of my career, various times, and never in any of those other periods have we had the advantage of a strong economy underpinning the markets.”

“An AIG failure would have been devastating to the financial system and to the economy.”

“The Fed has neither the clear statutory authority nor the mandate to anticipate and deal with risks across our entire financial system.”

“China saves too much, produces too much, sells too much to Americans and consumes too little.”

“I think the Chinese are wise. After all, they know the U.S. is in a very different league than Russia. The U.S. is the major power in the world, and the US-China relationship... is very important to global stability, to sustain global economic growth.”

“Large financial institutions in this country will always play a role that is essential to our economic growth. But they must only be permitted to grow and interconnect, throughout our economy, under careful oversight and with a mechanism for allowing those connections to be broken safely.”

“I've always said, 'I don't want to be irrelevant.'”

“I'd have liked to have been another Faulkner, of course.”

“I never cared about money. When I was at school, I never wanted a car. I was focused on sports, studies, camping, being outdoors.”

“Size is the enemy of excellence in investment banking, particularly when you are trying to put together two different cultures.”

“When companies fail, shareholders bear the losses. It's just the way our system is supposed to work.”

“We don't have the necessary laws or powers to deal with failing non-bank institutions. If they're a big bank, the depositor has deposit insurance, and the regulators can wind them down without throwing them into bankruptcy.”

“As we work to promote greater economic opportunity for the American people, we must always remember that the American economy is deeply integrated with the global economy. That brings challenges but even greater opportunities.”

“When it comes to the presidency, I will not vote for Donald Trump.”

“I have relied on prayer for health care all of my life.”

“In China, export lobbies have fought for policies that favor their interests and limit foreign competition.”