Elaine Chao Quotes

The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have great universities. We have entrepreneurs.

Where there is a worker, there lies a nation.

What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest.

By increasing productivity and becoming more competitive, we will be able to offer better opportunities and improve the standard of living for all Mexicans.

America's growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and immigration. The one thing that doesn't seem to have anything to do with America's growth rate is a brutal work schedule.

As a nation, America is at its best when we are thinking and making things and exporting to the world.

Hungary has no raw materials and no major energy sources; we have some agricultural background. So what we produce here in Hungary is the result of our labor and minds, and then we have to sell it to the world. If we are not able to do that, if we are not innovative enough, if we are not modern and open enough, we can't do that.

Federal research is vital to the innovation that drives our local economy and global competitiveness.

When you innovate, the jobs can't go overseas because other countries haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Some economists believe that the Greeks' work ethic and thrift can pull them through. But the classical virtues can do nothing to offset the dearth of innovation that plagues the economy.

We're only going to be able to compete in the world if we continue to be innovative.

Learning from the American experience, governments around the world have developed national innovation policies and programs to accelerate their economic prosperity and to help their citizens and companies compete globally.

It's like doctors can't save all their patients, but, on balance, Bain under Gov. Romney created well over 100,000 jobs, which is certainly more than has been created in the Obama administration because we're down over 500,000 over the last three-and-a-half years.

One succeeds in obtaining an equivalent production at a lower price by improving the arts, trades and agriculture and by developing the physical and moral qualities of workers, farmers and craftsmen.

We're actually making stuff in America now. We're exporting stuff. We're inventing things.

The model of the U.S. economy is that we are the country that does new things.

The government does not and cannot create jobs. Only entrepreneurs do.

Government is not the generator of economic growth; working people are.

Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture.

The will to work of everyone in the country is the best guarantee of national survival.

As we get better at things, we need less people to produce the things we really need, but what do we do with the rest of the people? They have to be doing something, too, to buy from those few which are doing the really basic stuff, and so that's why we need to be continually producing new stuff.

The single most important factor in determining America's success in the 21st century will be maintaining our ability to be an innovative and creative society.

The Italy of my children will be at head of Europe, economically. Because Italy has all the conditions to be the country of the startups, the country of artisans and quality, and the country of the big companies.

Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.

Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs, and wealth.