Bernie Sanders Quotes

You've got the top 400 Americans owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Most folks do not think that is right.

We did phenomenally well with young people. I think we did well with working class people.

Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.

For some reason, we can't go to Cuba, businesses in American can't do business in Cuba. I think that that is stupid. So I hope very much and applaud the president for his efforts in that direction and hope that in the not-too-distant future, that if I have anything to say about it as president, we will work aggressively to develop normal relations in every respect with the people of Cuba.

Many people can talk for a long period of time. But controlling, you know, your urinary tract is maybe the more difficult issue.

The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people's needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution - contributors.

I think everybody is in agreement that America is a great entrepreneurial nation. We have got to encourage that. Of course, we have to support small and medium-sized businesses. But you can have all of the growth that you want and it doesn't mean anything if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent.

People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer.

Politics is not a baseball game with winners or losers. What politics is about is whether we protect the needs of millions of people in this country who are hurting.

I am very glad, Anderson, that secretary Clinton discovered religion on this issue but it's a little bit too late. Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America.

In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts to build an economy which creates more jobs and income, not more unemployment and suffering.

You can't become a billionaire stepping over children sleeping on the street.

NAFTA, supported by the Secretary cost, us 800,000 jobs nationwide, tens of thousands of jobs in the Midwest. Permanent normal trade relations with China cost us millions of jobs. Look, I was on a picket line in early 1990's against NFATA because you didn't need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour.

I am on the Health Education Labor Committee. That committee wrote the Affordable Care Act. The idea I would dismantle health care in America while we're waiting to pass a Medicare for all is just not accurate.

In Germany, many other countries, college tuition is free. Why isn`t free in America? Why do we have the highest rate of childhood poverty when other countries have rates much lower than we have? Why don`t we have pay equity for women workers? Why aren`t we leading the world in transforming our energy system in terms of climate change? We can do that. Are we dumb? Are we lazy? Not the case.

Between 2013 and 2015, the wealthiest 14 people saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. This is their wealth increase, got it? Not what they are worth. Increase. That $157 billion is more wealth than is owned by the bottom 40 percent of the American people. One family, the Walton family, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent.

If you look at the newspapers here - the Washington papers - most of the discussion deals with campaign gossip.

You need a Democratic Party which is a grassroots party, which makes decisions from the bottom on up, not just from the top on down.

We did really, really badly with older African-American voters. I mean we got decimated.

Approximately 82% of the American people believe labeling should take place with regard to genetically engineered ingredients. All over this country people are increasingly concerned about the quality of the food they are ingesting and the food they are giving to their kids. People want to know what is in their food, and I believe that is a very reasonable request.

I have supported candidates whose views are very different than mine on the need the break up Wall Street banks, on the war in Iraq, on trade issues. Of course I have supported those people. My hope is that we're going to see - and I believe it is the case - we're going to see more and more strong progressives running for office. That's my hope. That's my desire. But that is up to - that decision is going to be made by people in 50 states and 435 congressional districts.

I do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

Muslims are not your enemy.

The Fed has got to become a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs.

People understand that the economy is rigged. They're working longer hours for low wages. All new income and wealth, almost all, is going to the people on top.

I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund and Planned Parenthood. Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time. Some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment.

They talk about class warfare -- the fact of the matter is there has been class warfare for the last thirty years. It's a handful of billionaires taking on the entire middle-class and working-class of this country. And the result is you now have in America the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth and the worst inequality in America since 1928. How could anybody defend the top 400 richest people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million people?

Everyone can have health care. Everyone can earn a living wage. We can educate all our kids - well. But none of that happens unless there's a political revolution. And it's not going to happen unless we deal with corporate control of the media.

Together we have sent a message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California.

Clearly we must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack, but we can and must do so in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society. We can do that without living in an Orwellian world where the government and private corporations know every telephone call that we make, every website we visit, everyplace we go.

We still have people in the active duty, and if people are feeling ill, if they're experiencing various symptoms and they're still in the active duty, they're less likely to come forward because that could result in their medical discharge.

Kid gets caught with marijuana, that kid has a police record. A Wall Street executive destroys the economy, $5 billion settlement with the government, no criminal record. That is what power is about. That is what corruption is about. And that is what has to change in the United States of America.

There is far too little discussion in Washington about the collapse of the middle class , almost no discussion at all about the incredible income inequality and wealth inequality in this country, and the fact that we're moving toward an oligarch form of society.

I do believe that if millions of people do stand up and fight back, we can stop Donald Trump from doing some really awful things.

I have spent the better part of my adult life standing up and fighting for working families.

I am going to work with people who hold similar views to me inside Congress, outside of Congress to make certain that we come together to stop Trump from doing some of the very ugly things that he has talked about doing.

I do believe that we should substantially lower student debt in this country, which is crushing millions of people. We pay for it, in my view, by a tax on Wall Street speculation. The middle class bailed out Wall Street in their time of need. Now, it is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.

If the environment were a bank, it would have been saved by now

I worry very much about kids growing up in a society where they think: "I'm not going to talk about this issue, read this book or explore this idea because someone may think I'm a terrorist." That's not the kind of free society I want for our children.

I will challenge anybody with regard to my record on LGBT issues.

Health care in America must be a right, not a privilege.

Secretary [Hillary ] Clinton is absolutely right, there are people, Koch brothers among others, who have a group called Concerned Veterans of America, funded by the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers, by the way, want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, every governmental program passed since the 1930s. Yes, there are people out there who want to privatize it.

As president, I will fight to make tuition in public colleges and universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on student loans.

I am very, very, very concerned about the United States getting drawn into an endless war, year after year after year.

When my Republican colleagues talk about family values, they mean that a woman should not be able to have the right to control her own body; that women should not be able to purchase the contraceptives that they want. Those are their family values, not our family values.

I know that virtually every member of the Senate understands we just cannot turn our back on men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us and who are hurting today.

I don't want to get people nervous falling off their chairs, but Social Security is a socialist program. It's a program by which the United States government has said that when you get old you should have a steady source of income.

When a mother has a baby, she should stay home with that baby.