Noam Chomsky Quotes

In fact, I was in a lab that was a hundred percent funded by the Pentagon, and it was one of the centers of the organized antiwar resistance movement.

What's called "liberal" in the intelectual culture means highly conformist to power, but mildly critical.

What the polls don't tell you is, though other polls do, is that if you do a study of CEOs, top executives in corporations, they're liberal.

I really suggest listening to talk radio. I mean, if you just listen to what the talk hosts are saying, they sound like they are lunatics.

I get terrific health care.

Just media alone is not enough. You have to have organization.

Unless that happens, unless you get, you know, kind of integration of activists' concerns and movements, it will be, each one will be 'preaching to the choir'.

Organization and education, when they interact with each other, they strengthen each other, they are mutually supportive.

What matters is what happens among the powerful.

Travel from what is called Pakistan to Afghanistan has been made increasingly difficult and people are often labelled terrorists, even those who might be just visiting families.

There's an interesting book called The Fugu Plan, written by Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, which describes the circumstances when European Jews came to Japan, a semi-feudal society.

I also learned from reading the left-wing press about the [Franklin] Roosevelt administration's indirect support for Francisco Franco, which was not well known, and still isn't.

The communists were mainly responsible for the destruction of the Spanish anarchists. Not just in Catalonia - the communist armies mainly destroyed the collectives elsewhere.

[Francisco Franco] said they should resort to guerrilla war. Which has a history in Spain.

George Washington hated the guerrillas. He wanted to imitate the British red coat armies, fighting as gentlemen are supposed to fight.

In general, we should be able to agree that those who have greater opportunities and face fewer impediments have a greater responsibility to do more to help achieve such ends.

Those of us lucky enough to have a share of privilege in the more free societies should not be asking this question, but doing something to answer it.

I wouldn't say that the efforts of academics to critique the media's messages are "half-hearted." As far as I am aware, the efforts scarcely exist: very few even pay attention to the question.

Anyone in a position to overcome barriers to free thought and communication should do so.

The book [Manufacturing Consent] itself is then devoted to a series of case studies, selected, we hope [with Edward Herman], to offer a fair and in fact rather severe test of those conclusions.

Since James Madison day (and long before), there have been constant struggles over "democratic governance".

It is only natural to expect that guilds will tend to "protect their turf" and to resist challenge.

About specific social issues, there is a great deal to say that departs very far from truism and is, accordingly, significant and controversial.

As elite attitudes towards public education over time illustrate, simple formulas are far from adequate. There are conflicting tendencies.

In my experience at least, the large public universities do not fall behind in fostering creativity and independence; often the contrary.

No use in waiting, we can all work hard to bring about changes.

You have to rely on yourself and your associates - gifts don't come from above; you're going to win them, or you won't have them.

You win by struggle, and that requires understanding and serious analysis of the options and the circumstances, and then you can do a lot.

Starting with [Ronald] Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn't the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.

They [unions] used straight Marxist rhetoric [in 1930s] - just the values were changed.

I have written occasionally on links between my scientific work and political thinking, but not much, because the links seem to me abstract and speculative.

Any little issue - Miss Universe, or whatever it may be - [Donald Trump] is completely unpredictable, he'll go off into outer space.

[Donald Trump] guru Steve Bannon is worse, he's much scarier. He probably knows what he's doing.

We could not bring democracy to South Vietnam at a cost that we were willing to accept. So it was a disaster. That' is the left extreme.

[After Vietnam] the type of interventions that are carried out are designed so as not to elicit public reactions.

You know, people talk about [Richard] Nixon's "madman theory." We don't really know much about that. It was in memoirs, by somebody else.

Nobody can successfully defy the master of the hemisphere [America], in fact of the world, hence the savagery.

There are many concepts of spirituality, among them, various notions of divinity developed in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions. Within these the concepts vary greatly.

Welsh is now almost a national language in Wales. The Scottish dialects are reviving to some extent. I don't think it's a major thing, but it's there, and it's happening elsewhere.

I'm pretty much out of popular culture altogether.

I just don't care about popular culture. It looks to me pointless and superficial. If I had free time I'd rather read a 19th century novel.

If you want information about sports, I can tell you things from the 1940's, and the couple years that my grandson was kind of a jock, but nothing in between.

If you believe in democracy, why shouldn't you know what the government is doing?

Iran is independent and independence is not tolerated.

The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance.

Hamas is a political party and political parties don't recognize other countries.

The developing world voice can be amplified enormously by support from the wealthy and the privileged, otherwise it's very likely to be marginalized.

Modifying the core institutions of the society is no small challenge.

A functioning eco-system is a human need.

Not being optimistic falls a long way short of predicting that all is finished.