I saw the prospect of serving as labor secretary as a wonderful opportunity to further the policies that I have been fighting for my whole life, and I had to seize it.
Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.
Some parents say it is toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout 'Bang!'
Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we've got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.
You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything in your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did.
One of the fundamental discoveries I made about myself - early enough to make use of it - was that I am driven to seize life and to understand it. The motor that pushes me is propelled by more than scientific curiosity.
The average American returning from a trip abroad likely - and understandably - assumes the contents of his or her electronic device does not come close to meeting the threshold of 'criminal' activity, such as would give a government agent the right to seize and peruse their iPad just because they are returning from a vacation.
