Ralph Nader Quotes

By the time you rise through the ranks, the culture of homogenization has bred the spirit and imagination out of you.

The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights... have pressured retailers on campus and off to publicly disclose the factory names and addresses.

People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.

In 2000 the majority of people wanted me and Buchanan on the debates in two thousand. And me on the debates in 2004. have there been any polls?

When people ask, "Why should the rich pay a larger percent of their income than middle-income people?" - my answer is not an answer most people get: It's because their power developed from laws that enriched them.

President [ Dwight] Eisenhower warned us, five star general, he said watch out for the military-industrial complex. That's a threat to our freedom, to our economy, and what we have now is a gigantic taxpayer draining empire that is devouring itself, which, as you say, it's creating more resistance, more fighting, against us oversees.

Every time I see something terrible, it's like I see it at age 19. I keep a freshness that way.

The accountability of government has gone to the point where the very use of the law is the instrument of illegality.

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.

Both [Donald] Trump and Hillary [Clinton] want bigger military budgets and Hillary supports President Obama's one trillion dollar expenditure to so-called upgrade nuclear weapons. P

Fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage. That was one of the reasons why so many people flocked to Bernie Sanders candidacy.

National security is the fig leaf against freedom of information.

President Reagan was elected on the promise of getting government off the backs of the people and now he demands that government wrap itself around the waists of the people.

Capitalism will always survive, because socialism will be there to save it.

[As a child] I was very interested in books that detailed injustice and how people who are underdogs were mistreated throughout history.

I think most people would like that: probably comes in about ninety percent. They see their public works crumbling, services inadequate, they have libraries and schools and bridges and highways that have not been repaired.

Washington DC is corporate-occupied territory.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

There's no better policy in a society then pursuing a health and safety of its people.

Obviously, the answer to oil spills is to paper-train the tankers.

Congress is the most powerful branch. It can expand a progressive society, or it can block a progressive society.

Justice needs money; it always has . . . whether for abolition of slavery and early women's rights movements or the civil rights and environmental drives of our generation.

Whatever your issue is, whether it's racism or homophobia or policy issues or taxes or urban decay or health care, you're not going to go anywhere with it if we don't focus on the concentration of power.

I think we should make a closer link between domestic policy and an interventionist militaristic foreign policy.

No presidential candidate should visit Las Vegas without condemning organized gambling.

When I went to Harvard Law School I became interested in the connection between legal standards for safety and automobile engineering design. At that time, it was all blamed on a "nut behind the wheel," so-called, the driver. But I knew that the vehicle had a great deal to do with that because I had come across some Air Force-sponsored studies at medical schools. The Air Force found they were losing more men on the highways than in the Korean War.

It's all these pundits, all these consultants, and the candidates, as if they're in a bubble leaving democracy off-limits.

The shortcomings of America's political leaders do not stop at our borders.

I suppose the Green Party doesn't care for the anti-civil libertarian provisions of the notoriously named Patriot Act, invading privacy, and being able to search your home, and not tell you for 72 hours.

We must strive to become good ancestors.

We're trying to convey how much easier it is than most people think, especially young people, to turn the country around if they focus on the levers, if they focus on Congress, and state legislatures.

I think George W. Bush's personality was overwhelmingly shaped in negative ways by his upbringing.

Family values stand up to injustice and power outside the household.

Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole.

The debate corporation is a corporation. It's funded by corporations. It's relayed by media corporations to the public. It's created by the two parties, which are corporations. We should have public presidential debates all over America run by public institutions.

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.

This policy represents a massive injustice against Iraqi civilians, ... and it must be ended - not after Mr. Clinton leaves office, but now.

Jill Stein, is - and I'll make it in a personal way - over eighty percent of the people when I ran for President knew about me but then I realized that when I was running, eighty percent of the people didn't even know I was running.

There are some people in this world who would never plant a seed because it doesn't produce fruit the first season.

You [Jill Stein] also believe in a full employment policy that was the majority Democratic Party policy in 1946. They actually passed a law to that effect. You want to end poverty and when people see how relatively easy it is to end poverty. And one way is to increase the minimum wage: catch up; it's been frozen for so many years.

What we need to recognize, less than 1 percent of the people organized around issues that are already supported by conservatives and liberals, and there are a lot of them that aren't publicized, back home, can overcome corporate forces in Washington.

Let's not just look at it as taking votes away from Gore. Our support comes from a lot of people.

Up against the corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interest nullifies genuine voter choice and trust.

It is fascinating to watch legislators turn away from their usual corporate grips when they hear the growing thunder of the people.

Gates's net wealth is greater than the combined net worth of the poorest 40% of Americans (112,000,000 people).

Arbitration is private. It doesn't have the tools to dig into the corporate files. It's usually controlled by arbitrators who want repeat business from corporations not from the injured person.

I hear people who are worried about climate change tell me, oh, Congress that's gridlock, that's not where the action is.

Ronald Reagan is the most ignorant president since Warren Harding.