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.
Ralph NaderRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Addiction is a health issue, not a criminal one, and should be treated accordingly.
Ralph Nader emphasizes that addiction should not be viewed through the lens of crime and punishment, but rather as a significant public health issue that requires compassionate treatment. By comparing the treatment of alcoholics to the incarceration of nonviolent drug users, he advocates for reform in how society approaches substance abuse, urging a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Themes
AddictionHealthTreatmentCrimeRehabilitationDrug Use
In practice
Example use cases
During a public health seminar, one might quote Nader to advocate for reform in drug policies.
More from Ralph Nader
All quotes →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.'
Ralph NaderRead
Power concedes nothing without a demand. The struggle for justice must never be adjourned. The forces of injustice do not take vacations.
Ralph NaderRead
The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.
Ralph NaderRead
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.
Ralph NaderRead
Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity.
Ralph NaderRead
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Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
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Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or" makes the "or" mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.
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Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility! Or why not my fortune adapted to its impulses! Tenderness without a capacity of relieving only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance.
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The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
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A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.
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