Bernie Sanders Quotes

I think the Democratic Party has got to make fundamental choices.

It's time for the Supreme Court to catch up to the American people and legalize gay marriage.

Social Security is a promise that we cannot and must not break.

What the people here have said is that given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for the same old, same old establishment politics and establishment economics.

I think that the media spends far too much time [on personalities].

I think in terms of who can be trusted, I think the evidence is clear that there has been no candidate that I have ever seen who lies more often than does Donald Trump. I mean and that's just not me saying it, that's what any independent media analysis has shown. So in terms of trust, you really can't trust a word, I think, that Mr. Trump has to say.

What are the moral implications? What do these people do when they have tremendous amounts of money? They use that money to perpetuate their own wealth and their own power. Every day, Congress works on behalf of big-money interests.

The political world is changing rapidly. What the establishment has learned, what the Democratic establishment, the Republican establishment, the media establishment, is the world is not quite what they thought it was. With the middle class disappearing, with people working longer hours for lower rages, with people worried about the future of their children, what you are seeing is a lot of discontent at the grassroots level all over this country. And that's what's going on right now.

This is what I would ask of the American people, and that is, and the media does not do this terribly often - put things in contact.

As an independent, my views, in fact, are a little bit different than many of my Democratic colleagues.

All that I can say is that we are spending far more per capita than people in any other country, and our health care outcomes are in many cases worse in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality and so forth.

Every person in this country who has the desire and ability should be able to get all the education they need regardless of the income of their family. This is not a radical idea. In Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, higher education is either free or very inexpensive. We must do the same.

We have got to change the political culture in America. We need a political revolution. That means we are working on politics not just three weeks before an election but 365 days a year.

Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process.

Goldman Sachs was one of those companies whose illegal activity helped destroy our economy and ruin the lives of millions of Americans. But this is what a rigged economy and a corrupt campaign finance system and a broken criminal justice is about. These guys are so powerful that not one of the executives on Wall Street has been charged with anything after paying, in this case of Goldman Sachs, a $5 billion fine.

We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do, so I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.

The American people understand that it is grotesquely unfair - we are a society that prides itself on fairness, that prides itself on equal opportunity, and people are looking out and seeing, since the Great Recession of 2008, 99 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.

I want to say something, and it may sound harsh, not to you, but to the American people. In a sense, in my view, the business model of Wall Street is fraud. It's fraud. I believe that corruption is rampant, and the fact that major bank after major bank has reached multi billion dollar settlements with the United States government when we have a weak regulator system tells me that not only did we have to bail them out once, if we don't start breaking them up, we're going to have to bail them out again, and I do not want to see that happen.

The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often.

I happen to respect people who are willing to come under public scrutiny and serve their country.

The disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region.

We are looking at a lot of dishonest news that comes across where people are lying outrageously about other people. And I hope that folks on all sides could say, "Look, I disagree with him or her, but that is an outrageous lie."

If Mr. Trump wants to work with us to make sure that trade works for the American worker, not just CEOs of corporate America, you have got a partner, partner.

I have one of the strongest records in fighting for senior citizens. I led the effort to prevent cuts to Social Security. But I think for some seniors, they remember the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. They conflated the term "democratic socialism" with communism.

The next time you do a filibuster, keep walking around.

I call upon Donald Trump to rescind the appointment that he made of Stephen Bannon. A president of the United States should not have a racist at his side, unacceptable.

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.

Real freedom must include economic security.

It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s. There were people, in this Congress, in the British Parliament saying, 'Don't worry! Hitler's not real! It'll disappear'.

In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.

Rescind the appointment of [Steve] Bannon. We will not be involved in the expansion of bigotry, of racism, sexism, homophobia.

It's not in the interest of the corporations who own the networks to actually be educating the American people so that are debating the real issues. It's much better to deflect attention away from issues and get into the story of the day.

What the Des Moines Register said - you know, there were coin - I think there were half a dozen coin flips - a fairly chaotic type situation. At the end of the day, no matter how it's recounted, it will break roughly even. I love and respect the caucus process in Iowa. See, and I don't have to say it, because they voted already.

The right wing in this country is waging a war against women, and let me be very clear, it is not a war that we are going to allow them to win.

The combat [with ISIS] on the ground must be done by Muslim troops with our support. We must not get involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

As the nation at last confronts global warming, it is no time for denial, greed, cynicism or pessimism.

We have got to mobilize people and rethink our commitment in terms of what our role is in the political process.

All of you are aware of the tragic history of racism in America, but for a very long time, African-Americans and their white allies came together and they struggled and they stood up for justice and they stood up to lynching and they stood up to segregation and the stood up to a nation where African-Americans couldn't even vote in America.

When people get out of jail, it is not easy for them to find a job. It is not easy for them to return to civil society.

97 percent of the scientists who wrote articles in peer-reviewed journals believe that human activity is the fundamental reason we are seeing climate change.

There is a reason why these people [from Wall Street] are putting huge amounts of money into our political system. And in my view, it is undermining American democracy and it is allowing Congress to represent wealthy campaign contributors and not the working families of this country.

To my mind, if we do not get a handle on money in politics and the degree to which big money controls the political process in this country, nobody is going to bring about the changes that is needed in this country for the middle class and working families.

Now all of the ideas that I'm talking about, they are not radical ideas. Making public colleges and universities tuition free, that exists in countries all over the world, used to exist in the United States. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and creating 13 million jobs by doing away with tax loopholes that large corporations now enjoy by putting their money into the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. That is not a radical idea.

In 30 years of public service, I have had no scandals. I have high ethical standards. I am most proud of my judgement, that kind of judgement is what we want in a president going forward. I want to be a peacemaker.

I want some help on this. I'm being very honest, i want some ideas, as somebody who was arrested 50 years ago fighting for Civil Rights trying to desegregate schools in Chicago, who spent his whole life fighting against racism, I want your ideas. What do you think we can do? What can we do?

I would love to have the endorsement of every progressive organization in America. We're very proud to have received recently the endorsement of MoveOn.org. We've received the endorsement Democracy for America. These are grassroots organizations representing millions of workers.

When we talk about power, we talk about Wall Street.

In America, we have struggled too much, too long as a country trying to overcome racism and sexism and homophobia. We cannot go back to a more discriminatory society.