Jerry Brown Quotes

Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division.

The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs.

After years of struggle, the U.S. Supreme Court today has made same-sex marriage a reality in California ... I have directed the California Department of Public Health to advise the state's counties that they must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California

Automation and technology would be a great boon if it were creative, if there were more leisure, more opportunity to engage in raising a family, providing guidance to the young, all the stuff we say we need. America will work if we're all in it together. It'll work when there's a shared sense of destiny. It can be done!

The minimum wage has not kept pace with rising costs. This legislation is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.

"Jobs for every American" is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter, basic food, and medical care. I'm talking about welfare for all. Without it, you're going to have warfare for all.

My principles are simple. Protect the Earth. Serve the People, and Explore the Universe

I would like to maximize the level of human choice in the medical field...The choice of a treatment in many ways is like the exercise of religion.

You're all welcome in California.

The volume of paper expands to fill the available briefcases.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

I see the day in our own lifetime that reverence for the natural systems, the oceans, the rainforests, the soil, the grasslands, and all other living things will be so strong that no narrow ideology based upon politics or economics will overcome it.

We have to restore power to the family, to the neighborhood, and the community with a non-market principle, a principle of equality, of charity, of let's-take-care-of-one-another. That's the creative challenge.

Equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice.

Life simply is. It follows its course. Give yourself to the moment. Let life reveal itself to you.

When the farmer can sell directly to the consumer, it is a more active process. There's more contact. The consumer can know, who am I buying this from? What's their name? Do they have a face? Is the food they are selling coming out of Mexico with pesticides?

Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void.

Check out my web site, wtp.org, to see what fast food did to 2 people in England.

As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization in education is crucial to both freedom and excellence.

The reason that everybody likes planning is that nobody has to do anything.

It doesn't matter what I say as long as I sound different from other politicians.

I see the world in very fluid, contradictory, emerging, interconnected terms, and with that kind of circuitry I just don't feel the need to say what is going to happen or will not happen.

I will defend everybody, every man, woman and child who's come to California for a better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state.

Organic farming is about buying out of a corrupt, illegal and dishonest system.

I reject get-it-done, make-it-happen thinking. I want to slow things down so I understand others better.

We have to be realistic about what the state can afford, and put an end to abuses of the system that cost millions.

America will be disadvantaged, just like Detroit was disadvantaged when they couldn't build smaller cars in the '70s or '80s. The world shifts.

Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change.

Let us not mince words about what this would be: a deportation force designed to break up families and deport millions of people.

Inaction may be the biggest form of action.

When I was Governor, Louis Kelso went out of his way to brief me. I was very impressed, but I was never able to get any of the economists in state government to give him the help his plan deserves.

Republican attacks are without basis, but when the Democrats attack me they're usually right.

The government is becoming the family of last resort.

There's nothing wrong with being an anarchist.

I understand we have to keep a significant amount of fossil fuel in the ground. I`m committed to that. But I`m not going to just all of a sudden try to stop the cars of California or to increase dramatically the number of ships carrying oil into the state when we already have our own production.

In some cases, managers and employees have secured pensions beyond their original base salary. It is wrong, the people doing it know it's wrong, and we have to put an end to it.

We have to deal with where we are. We have to create cooperatives, we have to create intentional communities, we have to work for local cooperation where we are.

Several unions have agreed to larger employee contributions for their members. Taxpayers are living with cuts and making sacrifices to deal with the reality of California's budget crisis, state workers are going to have to do the same.

It looks to me to be obvious that the whole world cannot eat an American diet.

You've got the oil companies fighting Pope Francis. Fighting the scientists of the world. Fighting the governor of California. They are engaged in literally a life-and-death struggle, and I have no doubt who is going to be the victor.

I like computers. I like the Internet. It's a tool that can be used. But don't be misled into thinking that these technologies are anything other than aspects of a degenerate economic system.

Everyone's heard about the military-industrial complex, but they know very little about the medical-industrial complex...(in) a medical arms race.

President Trump is boldly moving in what I would call rather extreme directions. And that is going to set into motion a reaction, and it already has... He builds the strength on the other side to combat climate change.

The great problem with government is that it never goes bankrupt.

If you say the world is totally dependent on oil in many parts of the world, coal and certainly natural gas, we are fossil fuel, that is modernity, modernity has two elements: individualism and oil. Now to move toward a more enlightened sustainable world, we have to transform with lots of technology, with even differences in the way we see the world and how we live in the world. That`s going to take decades.

Taking significant amounts of carbon out of our economy without harming its vibrancy is exactly the sort of challenge at which California excels.

Nuclear power will be the Vietnam issue of the 1980s.

I question whether we can afford to teach mother macramé when Johnny still can't read.

This is exciting, it is bold and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes to our climate system.

We need the science to continue. The heat, the storms, the sea level rise, the Arctic melting. These are all real facts that over time will sink in. The question is, will that be two years, or five years or 10 years?