Popular quotes by Bernie Sanders
“As mayor of Burlington, I helped establish two sister-city programs. One was with the town of Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua.”
“Change will not take place without political participation.”
“52 percent of all new income generated is going to the top 1 percent.”
“We are living in a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension.”
“Not one word about income inequality, climate change, Citizens United or student debt. That’s why the Rs are so out of touch.”
“tired of status quo politics and wanted real change in the world in which they were living.”
“all killings that took place when people were in police custody or being arrested would prompt a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.”
“Further, police officers must be trained to understand that lethal force is the last response, not, as is too often the case, the first response.”
“At both rallies I spoke at length about the need for criminal justice reform and for ending the absurdity of the United States having more people in jail than any other country on earth.”
“The corporate media spends a lot of time covering the lifestyles of the rich and the famous, but not all that much time covering the poor and the desperate. To a large degree, these people , the millions of poor people in America, are invisible, living under the radar screen. Their suffering is not seen on our evening news. But it's there.”
“They are rightfully tired of turning on the television and seeing videos of unarmed blacks being shot and killed by police officers. They want criminal justice reform. They want police department reform.”
“Republicans have cultivated, into a fine art, the ability to divide people up by race, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. That’s what they do. That is the essence of their politics.”
“One of the more profound lessons that I've learnt in politics is that everything is related to everything else. Nothing exists in a vacuum.”
“Humanity is at a crossroads. We can continue down the current path of greed, consumerism, oligarchy, poverty, war, racism, and environmental degradation. Or we can lead the world in moving in a very different direction.”
“Inequality, corruption, oligarchy, and authoritarianism are inseparable. They must be understood as part of the same system, and fought in the same way.”
“There is no justice, and I want you to hear this clearly, when the top one-tenth of 1 percent—not 1 percent, the top one-tenth of 1 percent—today in America owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.”
“when we talk about justice, we have to, in my view, understand that there is no justice when so few have so much and so many have so little.”
“The Supreme Court decided that corporations are people and they have the right of free speech and the right without disclosure—all of this is through the Citizens United Supreme Court decision—to put as much money as they want into campaigns all over the country.”
“In 2007, the top 1 percent earned 23.5 percent of all income, more than the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. That is not the foundation of a democratic society. That is the foundation for an oligarchic society. The rich get richer. The middle class shrinks. Poverty increases.”
“Let’s be very clear. Corporate media is not “objective”; they are not the “referees” trying to provide “all sides of the story.” Corporate media are profit-making entities owned and controlled by the ruling class and some of the wealthiest people in the country. And, like all private corporations, they have an agenda.”
“We, proudly, were the only campaign not to have a super PAC. In a manner unprecedented in American history, we received some 8 million individual campaign contributions. The average contribution was $27. These donations came from 2.5 million Americans, the vast majority of whom were low- or moderate-income people.”
“The goal of real healthcare reform must be high-quality, universal coverage in a cost-effective way.”
“In August 2008, the General Accountability Office issued a report. According to this report, two out of every three corporations in the United States paid no Federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005.”
“The United States invests just 2.4 percent of GDP in infrastructure; whereas, Europe invests twice that amount.”
“It is a challenge that progressives face throughout the country. We lose when we are divided. We win when we are united.”
“The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina, ran for Senator. This is what she said when she was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard in 2004: “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” I could go on and on and on, but I think we have the point.”
“Change comes, even in the face of overwhelming odds. And the recognition of the changes we have already made, of what we have won, inspires us to fight even harder. When”
“More tax breaks for the very rich is only one symptom of an economic and political system that is grotesquely failing the average American.”
“We are living in a nation which worships wealth rather than caring for the poor. I don’t think that is the nation we should be living in.”
“Republicans have cultivated, into a fine art, the ability to divide people up by race, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. That’s what they do. That is the essence of their politics. They get one group to fight another group while their wealthy friends and campaign contributors get richer and laugh all the way to the bank.”
“We don't want to see our kids and grandchildren be the first generation in the modern history of America to have a lower standard of living than their parents.”
“Democracy is not a spectator sport”
“And let me make the radical statement that I don’t believe that you can say something profound in the 140 characters that make up a tweet.”
“When we stand together there is nothing, nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish.”
“The American people want to know that when they borrow a book from the library or buy a book, the government won't be looking over their shoulder. Everybody wants to fight terrorism, but we have to do it in away that protects American freedom.”
“As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reminded us: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.“”
“You can’t become a billionaire stepping over children sleeping on the street.”
“The problems we face, did not come down from the heavens. They are made, they are made by bad human decisions, and good human decisions can change them.”