Ralph Nader

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

“Your best teacher is your last mistake.”

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

“Like sex in Victorian England, the reality of Big Business today is our big dirty secret.”

“John D. Rockefeller wanted to dominate oil, but Microsoft wants it all, you name it: cable, media, banking, car dealerships.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The nation is faced with one of the most corporate-orientated anti-consumer Congresses in our history.”

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

“Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.”

“The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse.”

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

“Power has to be insecure to be responsive.”

“A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.”

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