Noam Chomsky Quotes

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.

The people I find most impressive are generally unknown at the time of their actions and forgotten in history.

It hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison.

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies.

It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence

The term 'globalisation' is conventionally used to refer to the specific form of investor-rights integration designed by wealth and power, for their own interests.

The responsibilities of someone in a more free and open society are, again obviously, greater than those who may pay some cost for honesty and integrity.

There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things. Noam Chomsky

If the mutation is partially transmitted to offspring, they too would have the advantage. And over time it might have come to dominate a small breeding group.

See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.

The Pashtuns in particular are kind of trapped. They've never accepted the Durand Line nor has any Afghan government historically accepted it.

I had no expectations about Barack Obama and I'm not in the least disillusioned.

It takes one minute to tell a lie, and an hour to refute it.

There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

Expressing criticism of society is not being a grouch.

Ever since I've had any political awareness, I've felt either alone or part of a tiny minority.

Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War, and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.

If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

Every great power, every aggressive power has always regarded itself as exceptional and as doing things only for the most moral ends.

Scientists generally, not just evolutionary biologists, don't take much for granted.

Armed attack has a definition in international law. It means sudden, overwhelming, instantaneous ongoing attack.

Naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk... It's as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes 'Jew' and 'Gypsy.'

While Trump keeps the spotlight on himself, the "respectable" Republican establishment chips away at government programs that benefit the general population.

Latin America is all moving to the left, from Venezuela to Argentina with rare exceptions, but there's a good left and a bad left.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

Right now, huge numbers of people cannot obtain even drinking water, and the situation is likely to become worse with predicted climate change and failure to take the actions that are necessary.

People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged.

Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth.

People are capable of seeing the deceit they're ensnared in. They just have to make the effort.

The press is owned by wealthy men who only want certain things to reach the public.

If the US were to attack North Korea, they'd certainly destroy North Korea, but South Korea would be pretty well wiped out too.

The US is the wrecking machine that is destroying everything. The world is hoping that China will somehow come to the rescue.

It is not a war. It is murder.

The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.

The Internet is an élite organization; most of the population of the world has never even made a phone call.

If you don't like what someone has to say, argue with them.

My position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Even Stalin proclaimed his love for democracy. We do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric.

Workers and their families may starve to death in the New World Order of economic rationality, but diamond necklaces are cheaper in elegant New York shops, thanks to the miracle of the market.

Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent - and rhetoric about bestowing freedom and independence.

NAFTA was much more popular among US corporations than GATT, because NAFTA is highly protectionist in ways that GATT is not.

Some kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both countries [Pakistan and India]. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.