Ralph Nader

You should not allow yourself the luxuries of discouragement of despair. Bounce back immediately, and welcome the adversity because it produces harder thinking and harder drive to get to the objective.

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.'

Power concedes nothing without a demand. The struggle for justice must never be adjourned. The forces of injustice do not take vacations.

The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.

We have the most prolonged adolescence in the history of mankind. There is no other society that requires so many years to pass before people are grown up ... Adolescence is nurtured and prolonged by educational processes and by industry that has found a bonanza in embracing the adolescent population and fortifying 'adolescent values.' This prolongation of adolescence robs the country of the population group having the most risk takers, and the highest ideals.

Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity.

By the time you rise through the ranks, the culture of homogenization has bred the spirit and imagination out of you.

Secrecy destroys accountability.

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.

This country has been strip-mined by rich and powerful interests. If you dont like what they're doing, don't just sit there. Vote them out.

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

For over half a century the automobile has brought death, injury, and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people.

Power has to be insecure to be responsive.

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.

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.

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

The essence of globalization is a subordination of human rights, of labor rights, consumer, environmental rights, democracy rights, to the imperatives of global trade and investment.

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 common belief that coaches must be abusive to be successful is a myth. Research shows that if you find a task fun, you'll perform better. If more coaches took . . . a Golden Rule approach to coaching, treating their players the way they themselves would like to be treated, fewer athletes would drop out of sports in their teens, and more athletes at every level would be happier and more satisfied.

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.

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