Ralph Nader Quotes

“I don't think meals have any business being deductible. I'm for separation of calories and corporations.”

“Your best teacher is your last mistake.”

“Militaristic foreign policy is destroying America.”

“Word of mouth is the most effective means of communication.”

“I always say there's no ticket of admission for active citizenship. Anybody can get through that gate, and anybody can ask that basic question that gets the ball rolling.”

“The reason that democracies always defeat dictatorships is because they're open to debate. We should never allow Washington to say, 'Shut up, get in line and wave the flag.'”

“I have a consistent rule: The American people should know as much about the Pentagon as the Soviet Union and China do, as much about General Motors as Ford does, and as much about City Bank as Chase Manhattan does.”

“I once said to my father, when I was a boy, 'Dad we need a third political party.' He said to me, 'I'll settle for a second.'”

“The world is shaped by different people with certain personalities that come out of different upbringings.”

“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.”

“The lesser of two evils, or the least of the worst, is not good enough for the American people anymore.”

“The only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals.”

“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.”

“Young wives are the leading asset of corporate power. They want the suburbs, a house, a settled life, and respectability. They want society to see that they have exchanged themselves for something of value.”

“She was the light of our lives, our anchor, compass and vision.”

“Secrecy destroys accountability.”

“There is not enough self-consciousness about what a family can be, about what it can inherit from forbearers, and what new traditions it can start as a contributor to the community.”

“Families are incubators for citizen activists.”

“Let it not be said by a future, forlorn generation that we wasted and lost our great potential because our despair was so deep we didn't even try, or because each of us thought someone else was worrying about our problems.”

“I think most Americans are ready for waging peace and not just brutalizing our foreign policy which is boomeranging against us.”

“Information is the currency of democracy. It's denial must always be suspect.”

“Nothing short of a federal investigation can begin to disclose the abuses which have woven a fine web of mutually implicating relationships between businessmen and government officials.”

“There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.”

“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”

“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.”