Bernie Sanders Quotes

#1. The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.

Bernie Sanders

#2. Clearly North Korea is a very strange situation because it is such an isolated country run by a handful of dictators, or maybe just one, who seems to be somewhat paranoid. And, who had nuclear weapons.

Bernie Sanders

#3. I want to know in this day and age, whether it is possible for any candidate who is not a billionaire or who is not beholden to the billionaire class, to be able to run successful campaigns.

Bernie Sanders

#4. I fear very much for our kids, for low income people and for seniors.

Bernie Sanders

#5. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#6. Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999.

Bernie Sanders

#7. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#8. I think too many of my Republican friends are into perpetual warfare in the Middle East. And that scares the bejesus out of me.

Bernie Sanders

#9. But on the other hand, there are many corporations who have turned their backs on the American worker, who have said, if I can make another nickel in profit by going to China and shutting down in the United States of America, that's what I will do.

Bernie Sanders

#10. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#11. We need to recognize the incredible challenges that so many parents face, especially working moms. We need to join the rest of the advanced world.

Bernie Sanders

#12. When millions of people stand up and fight ... they win.

Bernie Sanders

#13. 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?

Bernie Sanders

#14. In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women.

Bernie Sanders

#15. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#16. I actually think the only way that you can beat Trump is recognizing that he is a one- man wrecking machine fueled by this cult personality. So you have to attack him on those bases. None of these ideological positioning issues matter for [Donald] Trump.

Bernie Sanders

#17. Wish we could, and allow the Taliban or anybody else to reclaim that country. But what we must do is some progress in Iraq, where finally the Iraqi army, which has not been a particularly effective fighting force, retook Ramadi.

Bernie Sanders

#18. As a member of both the energy and environment committees, I am constantly astounded by how many of my colleagues prefer to focus on what the government can do for the nuclear or coal industries rather than why the government should support clean and sustainable energy.

Bernie Sanders

#19. Rich get richer. Everyone else gets poorer. And all these guys can talk about is war and defunding Planned Parenthood.

Bernie Sanders

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

Bernie Sanders

#21. It has become clear that the function of a private health insurance is to make as much money as possible. Every dollar not paid out in claims is another dollar made in profits for the company.

Bernie Sanders

#22. We are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana.

Bernie Sanders

#23. One can't predict the future, that maybe our training and their fighting capabilities are improving and we are going to make some progress in destroying ISIS.

Bernie Sanders

#24. Super PACs and a corrupt campaign finance system are destroying American democracy. We're proud that we have received four million individual contributions, more than any candidate in American history at this point.

Bernie Sanders

#25. In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don't.

Bernie Sanders

#26. Why, over her political career has Wall Street been a major - the major campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they're dumb and they don't know what they're going to get, but I don't think so.

Bernie Sanders

#27. Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign are standing up and fighting the important fights that have to be fought.

Bernie Sanders

#28. I surely remember being in the administration building sitting in long sleepless nights and working with young people to do the right thing. And that is to tell our university, at that time, the University of Chicago, that it was wrong to own and maintain segregated housing. I remember it very well.

Bernie Sanders

#29. Ted Kennedy will go down in history as one of the giants of the U.S. Senate and one the most accomplished legislators in American history.

Bernie Sanders

#30. The debate is over. The scientific community has spoken in a virtually unanimous voice. Climate change is real. It is caused by human activity ...

Bernie Sanders

#31. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#32. The government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of the wealthy.

Bernie Sanders

#33. I have been in the Democratic Caucus in the Senate for over 24 years.

Bernie Sanders

#34. What kind of nation are we when we give tax breaks to billionaires, but we can't take care of the elderly and the children.

Bernie Sanders

#35. Today, the United States is No. 1 in corporate profits, No. 1 in CEO salaries, No. 1 in childhood poverty and No. 1 in income and wealth inequality in the industrialized world.

Bernie Sanders

#36. When I was in the House for 16 years, I caucused with the Democrats.

Bernie Sanders

#37. Let me thank the 2 1/2 million Americans who helped fund our campaign with an unprecedented 8 million individual campaign contributions. Anyone know what that average contribution was? That's right, $27.

Bernie Sanders

#38. The Federal Reserve has the responsibility to protect the credit rights of consumers.

Bernie Sanders

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

Bernie Sanders

#40. History will record that the Citizens United decision is one of the worst in the history of our country.

Bernie Sanders

#41. The decision is I'm going to do everything I can to fight for the working class of this country, the low-income people against income and wealth inequality, do everything we can about climate change.

Bernie Sanders

#42. I see a future where states compete with one another to see which can be the most efficient, and where businesses seek out efficient states in which to locate so they can reap the economic and environmental benefits for their businesses and employees.

Bernie Sanders

#43. Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.

Bernie Sanders

#44. At a time of massive inequality, I think we can raise substantial sums of revenue to address the needs of working families, the elderly, and the children, by asking those people who are doing phenomenally well to start paying their fair share.

Bernie Sanders

#45. Countering violent extremism and destroying ISIS must be done primarily by Muslim nations with the strong support of their global partners.

Bernie Sanders

#46. Republicans drove us into debt with two wars and the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to pay for that debt with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is not only immoral it is bad economics. Why do Republicans always have money for war but not for those in need?

Bernie Sanders

#47. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#48. We are going to do everything that we can to protect working families in this country.

Bernie Sanders

#49. I happen to believe that we should move to a Medicare-for-all single-payer system, similar to what other countries around the world have.

Bernie Sanders

#50. The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.

Bernie Sanders

#51. I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.

Bernie Sanders

#52. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read.

Bernie Sanders

#53. What I do believe absolutely is that in the middle of a recession, the American middle class and working class needs a tax relief.

Bernie Sanders

#54. Progressives know there is something very wrong when a nation divided politically has one major network operating as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists.

Bernie Sanders

#55. We have to invest in our kids, we have to invest in our communities, we have to create jobs. We have to make certain that kids are not dropping out of school and hanging out on street corners.

Bernie Sanders

#56. The votes elected officials make should be based on the best interests of the American people, not the fear of retribution when shadowy groups spend millions of dollars on negative advertisements.

Bernie Sanders

#57. I understand what a normal political speech is. You get up there, tell a few jokes, you have the flags behind you, and you speak for 10 or 15 minutes in broad generalities.

Bernie Sanders

#58. When the average Social Security benefit is $1328 a month, and more than one-third of our senior citizens rely on Social Security for Virtually all of their income, our job is to expand benefits, not cut them.

Bernie Sanders

#59. Sometimes the media says, well, this state had an election, it's the end of the campaign. It is not. We have dozens of more states to go. We're feeling good about the future.

Bernie Sanders

#60. I would say that the key doctrine of the Sanders administration would be no, we cannot continue to do it alone; we need to work in coalition.

Bernie Sanders

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

Bernie Sanders

#62. The American people want to raise the minimum wage. Every poll tells us that. That bill will not get to the floor of the Senate. The American people want to ask the rich to pay more in taxes. But the legislation that will get to the floor is tax breaks for billionaires.

Bernie Sanders

#63. Instead of cutting Social Security, we're going to expand Social Security benefits.

Bernie Sanders

#64. If we are serious about moving toward energy independence in a cost-effective way, we should invest in solar energy. If we are serious about cutting air and water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should invest in solar energy.

Bernie Sanders

#65. If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

Bernie Sanders

#66. 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

Bernie Sanders

#67. Let's ask why it is that we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and your medicine can be doubled tomorrow, and there's nothing that the government can do to stop it.

Bernie Sanders

#68. As is the Vermont way, our trips were pretty low-key. No entourage. No advance people. No communications director. No security. Just Phil and me flying in coach, renting cars, and showing up for meetings - trying to get a sense of the potential support that might exist. I

Bernie Sanders

#69. At a time when the Post Office is losing substantial revenue from the instantaneous flow of information by email and on the Internet, slowing mail service is a recipe for disaster.

Bernie Sanders

#70. At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

Bernie Sanders

#71. I understood that these trade agreements were going to destroy the middle class of this country. I led the fight against us. That is one of the major differences that we have.

Bernie Sanders

#72. Today the biggest problem in caring for those with AIDS is no longer mainly a medical or scientific problem. The crisis is access to affordable drugs.

Bernie Sanders

#73. We've had a number of economists supporting our legislation. And here's where we are. The American people can judge. Six largest financial institutions in America today have assets of roughly $10 trillion; equivalent to 58 percent of the GDP of the United States of America.

Bernie Sanders

#74. I think the immediate thing is we stand up to protect those people who are in trouble.

Bernie Sanders

#75. Nowadays you don't need to be a senator or a CEO or a celebrity to have a voice in the media, and if you happen to be a senator, a CEO or a celebrity, you have a thousand people each with their own respective audiences to hold you accountable.

Bernie Sanders

#76. Low-income people, racial or ethnic minorities, pregnant women, seniors, people with special needs, people in rural areas - they all have a much harder time accessing a dentist than other groups of Americans.

Bernie Sanders

#77. The Postal Service is a vitally important institution for the American people. It must be saved.

Bernie Sanders

#78. Difficult times often bring out the best in people.

Bernie Sanders

#79. Every three weeks before an election the TV ads expressing great concern about our trade policy and the loss of jobs to China and other low-wage countries. And then it's forgotten about the day after the election.

Bernie Sanders

#80. I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.

Bernie Sanders

#81. The wealthiest 400 Americans now earn, on average, $345 million a year, and they pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent.

Bernie Sanders

#82. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#83. I have taken on virtually every element of the big money establishment, whether it's the Koch brothers, and the big energy companies, whether it's the industrial complex, whether it's Wall Street. I have taken on the drug companies. I have taken on the insurance companies.

Bernie Sanders

#84. It is time for Congress to save the Postal Service, not dismantle it.

Bernie Sanders

#85. The message is resonating, not just in Wisconsin, but all over America, the people are sick and tired of establishment politics, establishment economics. They want real change.

Bernie Sanders

#86. Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.

Bernie Sanders

#87. I would ask ... of my supporters to get away from the personality conflicts that media tries to bring forward and focus on the real issues impacting the American people. And when you do that, I think the choice is pretty clear and that is that Hillary Clinton is far and away the superior candidate.

Bernie Sanders

#88. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#89. Hillary Clinton wants to see that all Americans have the right to choose a public option in their health care exchange.

Bernie Sanders

#90. The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States, and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.

Bernie Sanders

#91. The last point that I'd make. I had a hearing. I had all of the veterans groups in front of me. And I said to them, tell me when a veteran gets in to the V.A., understanding there are waiting lines and real problems, when a veteran gets into the system, is the quality of care good?

Bernie Sanders

#92. An America where every person, no matter their race, their disability or their sexual orientation realizes the full promise of equality that is our birthright as Americans.

Bernie Sanders

#93. Your story is for - voting for every disastrous trade agreement, and voting for corporate America. Did I vote against the Wall Street bailout?

Bernie Sanders

#94. 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.

Bernie Sanders

#95. For better or worse, when Sen. Inhofe speaks, the Republican Party follows. And when the Republican Party follows, it is impossible to get real work done in the Congress.

Bernie Sanders

#96. Yes, we become stronger when men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant fight together to create the kind of country we all know we can become.

Bernie Sanders

#97. Wall Street has enormous power over the Republican Party, enormous power over the Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders

#98. Health care in Denmark is universal, free of charge and high quality. Everybody is covered as a right of citizenship.

Bernie Sanders

#99. Social security is the most successful government program in our nation's history. We are not going to cut social security! We are going to expand social security!

Bernie Sanders

#100. Black lives, of course, matter. I spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity, but if you don't want me to be here, that's OK. I don't want to out-scream people.

Bernie Sanders