Bernie Sanders Quotes

“We all remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. What is less well known is that BP is claiming a 9.9 billion tax deduction on the money they had to spend cleaning up their own mess and paying for damages they caused. That is absurd.”

— Bernie Sanders

“If credit unions can grow and prosper with a 15 percent cap, so can banks.”

— Bernie Sanders

“To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.”

— Bernie Sanders

“There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In 1999, Hoffmann-LaRoche paid a $500 million criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to fix prices for certain vitamins.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Vermonters often ask me whether I am pessimistic about the future of our country. My honest answer is that I am not.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In 2005, Republicans passed a 360-page reconciliation bill without a single Democratic vote that provided deep cuts to Medicaid and raised premiums on Medicare beneficiaries.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Before Congress cuts funding for Head Start, Social Security, and financial aid for college, we have got to make sure that large, profitable corporations are paying their fair share of taxes.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In 1940, then-Senator Harry Truman headed up a Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. In the course of World War II, more than $15 billion in unnecessary and fraudulent defense spending was identified.”

— Bernie Sanders

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

“People don't trust private health insurance companies for all the right reasons.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In Finland, where 80 percent of workers belong to unions, all employees enjoy at least 30 days paid vacation, and the gap between the rich and poor is far more equitable than in the United States.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In terms of job creation, every billion dollars invested in the physical infrastructure creates 47,000 new jobs.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Clinton understands that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is one of the great environmental crises facing our planet. She knows that we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and move aggressively to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”

— Bernie Sanders

“We need leadership in this country, which will improve the lives of working families, the children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. We need leadership which brings our people together and makes us stronger.”

— Bernie Sanders

“A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Politics is not a baseball game with winners or losers. What politics is about is whether we protect the needs of millions of people in the country who are hurting.”

— Bernie Sanders

“I know media is not necessarily focused on these things. But what a campaign is about is not Hillary Clinton, it's not Donald Trump. It is the people of this country, people who are working longer hours for lower wages, people who do not have health care or are underinsured.”

— Bernie Sanders

“I am going to do my best to try to create a country in which children are not living in poverty, in which kids can go to college, in which old people have health care. Will I succeed? I can't guarantee you that, but I can tell you that from a human point of view it is better to show up than to give up.”

— Bernie Sanders

“A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932 ... and 50 million people died as a result ... what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.”

— Bernie Sanders

“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.”

— Bernie Sanders

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

— Bernie Sanders

“Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed, it is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.”

— Bernie Sanders

“If we are a free country, we have the right to be free.”

— Bernie Sanders

“In 2013 Citigroup had profits of $6.4 billion in the United States. They paid no federal income tax and, in fact, received a rebate from the IRS of $260 million. That same year J.P. Morgan had $17.2 billion in profits in the U.S. They also paid no federal income tax. Do you think it's time for tax reform?”

— Bernie Sanders

“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

“We can combat climate change effectively. What we are lacking now is not the brain power, not the knowledge, not the technology. What we are lacking is the political will power, and we need your help by the millions to tell Congress to stop worrying about their fossil fuel contributors to their campaigns and worry about their kids and grandchildren.”

— Bernie Sanders

“The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people's needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution - contributors.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Together, leading the world, the U.S.A. will rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS.”

— Bernie Sanders

“This is what income inequality means in America, and why the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. According to a recent study, CEO pay is now 295 times more than the pay of a typical worker. In 1965, the differential was 20 times. We must create an economy that works for all, not just the top 1%.”

— Bernie Sanders

“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

“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

“[Iranians] are a sponsor of terrorism around the world and we have to address that.”

— Bernie Sanders

“So as a nation, we have a right to be very proud of the successes that we have seen because of the struggle of millions of people to create a less discriminatory society. That is something we should be proud of, but there is one struggle in which not only have we not succeeded but in which we are losing ground and that is the fundamental struggle for economic justice.”

— Bernie Sanders

“The middle class in America is at a tipping point. It will not last another generation if we don't boldly change course now.”

— Bernie Sanders

“So what I have said with regard to Boeing and GE and other multinationals that pay zero taxes, you know what we're going to do? We're going to end that loophole. They are going to pay their fair share of taxes.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Kid gets caught with marijuana, that kid has a police record. A Wall Street executive destroys the economy, $5 billion settlement with the government, no criminal record. That is what power is about. That is what corruption is about. And that is what has to change in the United States of America.”

— Bernie Sanders

“If there is a large voter turnout, not only do we retain the White House, but I think we regain the Senate. We win governors' chairs up and down the line. So I believe if you want to retain the White House, if you want to see Democrats do well across the board, I think our campaign is the one that creates the large voter turnout and helps us win.”

— Bernie Sanders

“The billionaire class fully understands what is at stake. That's why a handful of them are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the current elections. Their goal is not to strengthen the middle class, but continue the trend in which the rich are getting richer at the expense of everyone else.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing and one-third of all seniors depend on Social Security for at least 90% of their income.”

— Bernie Sanders

“Here's what income and wealth inequality is about. Last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers made more than 24 billion, enough to pay the salaries of 425,000 public school teachers. This level of inequality is neither moral or sustainable”

— Bernie Sanders

“The police killings of unarmed African Americans has got to stop.”

— Bernie Sanders

“I think, clearly, we got to work closely with China to resolve the serious problems we have, and I worry about Putin and his military adventurism in the Crimea and the Ukraine.”

— Bernie Sanders

“When I talked about Boeing and I talked about General Electric, what I was referring to is an outrage. Right now you have a loophole such that these guys are putting their profits, multi-billion dollar profitable corporations putting billions of dollars into the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens.”

— Bernie Sanders

“We will do well when young people, when working-class people come out. We do not do well when the voter turnout is not large. We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout.”

— Bernie Sanders

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

— Bernie Sanders

It's not something where you can say, one time you said this and now you said this. That doesn't peel off any of his people. The only way that you can do it is by out alphaing [Doanld] Trump, and I think that's what Marco Rubio's attempting to do.

— Bernie Sanders

“Demagogues like [Donald] Trump come along. He says I know what the cause is. Remember, later, the cause was that Mexicans who are coming to this country, well, they were criminals or rapists. Now it is Muslims.”

— Bernie Sanders

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

— Bernie Sanders