Noam Chomsky Quotes
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.
Technology is basically neutral. It's kind of like a hammer. The hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull.
The United States happens to be the only state in the world that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism.
The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.
The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert.
ISIS is a monstrosity. It didn't come from nowhere. It's one of the results of the U.S. hitting a very vulnerable society - Iraq - with a sledgehammer.
The entire socioeconomic system is based on production for profit and a growth imperative that cannot be sustained.
It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.
People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.
The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have.
If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself.
The number of people killed by the sanctions in Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons of mass destruction in all of history.
All forms of involuntary servitude are prohibited, not only slavery but also conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution.
Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.
The term "intellectual" is used conventionally to refer to people who happen to have unusual opportunities in this regard, and as always, opportunity confers moral responsibility.
Anyone who studies declassified documents soon becomes aware that government secrecy is largely an effort to protect policy makers from scrutiny by citizens, not to protect the country from enemies.
I have no Facebook page or Twitter - I don't participate in it, and I don't like it particularly. I mean, it's a form of interaction, which strikes me as extremely superficial.
Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment.
There is no western concern for issues of aggression, atrocities, human rights abuses and so on if there's a profit to be made from them
The general public are not even aware of major decisions that will determine their fate, hence are in no position to influence them
We don't use the term 'working class' here because it's a taboo term. You're supposed to say 'middle class,' because it helps diminish the understanding that there's a class war going on.
If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong.
If you're in a system where you must make profit in order to survive. You are compelled to ignore negative externalities, effects on others.
Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy.
Unfortunately, you can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place
Ontological questions are generally beside the point, hardly more than a form of harassment.
There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
The public is not to see where power lies, how it shapes policy, and for what ends. Rather, people are to hate and fear one another.
There is a social responsibility to take care of vulnerable people. It seems that a sensible social responsibility is obligatory education, but also decent education, and that is not happening.
Its true that contemporary technology permits decentralization, it also permits centralization. It depends on how you use the technology.
Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.
With government deregulation and the triumph of financial liberalization, the dangers of systemic risks, the possibility of a financial tsunami, sharply increased.
For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination.
Africa's a wreck and it's not because it was hit by an asteroid. It's a wreck largely because it was hit by Europe.
There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan.
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.