Noam Chomsky's Quotes

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom - along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

States are not moral agents.

I don't have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Public opinion can be influential, the media can be influential.

Sooner or later, jihadist-style terror and WMD are going to come together and the consequences could be horrendous.

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

Humans have certain properties and characteristics which are intrinsic to them, just as every other organism does. That's human nature.

I don't see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable.

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

The government of Israel doesn't like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power.

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

As a research tool, the internet is invaluable.

Governments don't control people like they used to.

I don't like the intellectual label.

In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professors is routine.

Markets have built in inefficiencies, serious inefficiencies which are well known.

My proposal happens to be very mainstream.

Now financial liberalization is just a catastrophe waiting to happen, and there are very well understood reasons for that.

State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.

When I was a college student and I got interested in linguistics the concern among students was, this is a lot of fun, but after we have done a structural analysis of every language in the world what's left? It was assumed there were basically no puzzles.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

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

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

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

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

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.

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

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don't have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.

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

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.

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.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.