Ralph Nader (b.1934) is an American lawyer and a prominent figure in the American consumer protection movement. He was a four-time candidate for the U.S. presidency (1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.)
Born in Winsted, Connecticut, to Lebanese immigrants, Nader was educated at Princeton and Harvard Law School. He campaigned for improved consumer rights and protection, encouraging the establishment of powerful civic interest lobbies of which the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, and corporate executives were forced to take note.
Nader’s bestseller about the automotive industry’s deliberate compromise of passenger safety for the sake of costs, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965,) led to the passage of improved car safety regulations in 1966. He subsequently examined issues concerned with mining, nuclear power radiation hazards, meat processing, and airlines.
Nader became head of the Public Citizen Foundation in 1980. His other works include The Menace of Atomic Energy (1977,) Who’s Poisoning America? (1981,) and Winning the Insurance Game (1990.)
The documentary An Unreasonable Man (2006) chronicles Nader’s career.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ralph Nader
Today the large organization is lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs.
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Slavery
This administration is not sympathetic to corporations, it is indentured to corporations.
—Ralph Nader
Sanctions against polluters are feeble and out of date, and are rarely invoked.
—Ralph Nader
For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull.
—Ralph Nader
Your best teacher is your last mistake.
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Mistakes
Obviously, the answer to oil spills is to paper-train the tankers.
—Ralph Nader
Water is the most precious, limited natural resource we have in this country…But because water belongs to no one – except the people – special interests, including government polluters, use it as their private sewers
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Water
Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Good, Best
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
—Ralph Nader
When strangers start acting like neighbors… communities are reinvigorated.
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Neighbors
There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.
—Ralph Nader
Topics: Democracy
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Jane Addams American Social Reformer
Midge Decter American Journalist
Marianne Williamson American Activist
Robin Morgan American Activist
Elizabeth Taylor American Actress
Norman Podhoretz American Political Activist
Jesse Jackson American Baptist Civil Rights Activist
Jeannette Rankin American Politician
W. E. B. Du Bois American Sociologist, Activist
Harry Browne American Politician