Bernie Sanders Quotes

It's not necessarily a brave thing, people talk about what they think about. There's people out there who love to talk about politics or where they think the countries headed. I don't talk about that I talk about...things that are a little trippier.

I don't think we live in a place where we don't want people to be able to say when they disagree with the president or incoming administration.

The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with. More media always means more arguing.

I think it is important for me to speak out on social issues. Sometimes people will agree with me. Sometimes people will disagree with me. I don't take that personally.

[Alan Berg's] memory haunts many people, even those who never heard him on the radio, because his death could be read as a message: Be cautious, be prudent, be bland, never push anybody, never say what you really think, offer yourself as a hostage to the weirdos even before they make the first move. These days, a lot of people are opposed to the newfound popularity of 'trash television,' and no doubt they are right, and the hosts of these shows are shameless controversy-mongers. But at least they are not intimidated. Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

People have a right to give a speech. And people have a right to protest. But I'm not a great fan of disrupting people's speeches.

Except for those who think in terms of pious platitudes or dogma or narrow prejudice (and those thoughts we aren't interested in), people don't speak their beliefs easily, or publicly.

We have so few unaffiliated public intellectuals now - people who are not beholden to a think tank, corporate-owned media, or academic department - and even many literary writers look and behave like young urban professionals and canny careerists.

I want to be able to speak freely about what I believe. There's a lot of people who would actually like to be able to do that but, for whatever reason, they can't.

I've been criticized because I've had the temerity to speak out and done a couple of interviews since I left office. I don't find anything surprising about that. I don't say - I've been careful not to get personal in terms of my criticisms for my comment, but I think the issues are simply too important for the future of the nation for us to operate as though those of us who disagree somehow shouldn't speak out and be heard. I think we need to be heard.

I had some people say to me, you don't - you wouldn't give air time to a holocaust denier. Why bother covering if [Donald Trump] tweet is totally crazy?

There are always gonna be people that are gonna be offended about something. This will never end.

I don't like the tendency on the part of so many people today to think that those who don't agree with them are bad. In fact, I find that very dangerous.

I don't shout people down. I argue people down, perhaps.

You talk about a hateful bunch of people. They have this hate list. Charles Murray. He has been victimized with riots on college campus because he is depicted as a profound hater on the Southern Poverty Law Center website and the left treats that place like a Bible.

I would just encourage everybody to just talk your opinion more, allow other people and fight for other people to [express theirs].

On the other side of the spectrum, you see someone like Donald Trump, who is using as the basis of his campaign political incorrectness. It's clearly intentional. He'd have to be a complete moron just to coincidentally insult Mexicans, and women, and disabled people, and Muslims. So clearly he's using it as a vote winner. But I think with comedians there's a responsibility.

In civic life, I think that's where you can debate what is good taste and what is acceptable to other people, and what's gonna offend people. Do that there, but leave it out of art, because art is the one frontier that shouldn't have restraints put on it.

There is nothing that's off limits. If people think something is off limits, I make it my business to go make a joke about it; that's my job.

Think 'free speech,' not 'free beer.'

The only people who have never had a problem with me speaking in their venues are independent bookstores and libraries. Universities and humanities councils have canceled me, but never an independent bookstore.

I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended.

Intolerance is a beautiful thing...There are people that are politically correct that want to say the cardinal sin of the hour is intolerance and I think that is a bunch of junk.

It's pretty hard to offend me. I actually think people are a little too easily offended.

I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.