Noam Chomsky Quotes

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.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far be... -Noam Chomsky

It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

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This quote expresses relief or astonishment at the fact that a nuclear war has not yet occurred. It implies that the absence of a nuclear conflict is a fortunate circumstance, considering the catastrophic consequences that such a war would entail.

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

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The quote implies that the presence of financial interests and contributions in politics serves as a lucrative source of revenue for the media industry, indicating a symbiotic relationship between them.

Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.

In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials - literally, which is why I'm teaching at MIT.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

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.

Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

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

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

One of the problems of organizing in the North, in the rich countries, is that people tend to think - even the activists - that instant gratification is required. You constantly hear: 'Look I went to a demonstration, and we didn't stop the war so what's the use of doing it again?'

There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction - that is, the hatred and the anger - they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they're rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger.

Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq.

The social and physical construction of suburban America really was quite complex. It was a very elaborate system, and clearly a massive social engineering project that has changed U.S. society enormously.

I like the cold weather. It means you get work don... -Noam Chomsky

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

China is a great manufacturing center, but it's actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial - more advanced industrial centers - Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe - and it basically assembles them.

Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today's political scene.

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.

Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on.

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

I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven - that's none of my business, ultimately. I won't lecture her on the philosophy of science.

The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for p... -Noam Chomsky

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

In 1949, China declared independence - an event known in Western discourse as 'the loss of China' in the U.S. - with bitter recriminations and conflict over who was responsible for that loss.

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism,... -Noam Chomsky

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

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This quote differentiates between acts of indiscriminate violence targeting innocent civilians, labeling them as terrorism, and a genuine war against terrorism. It implies a distinction between legitimate military action and acts of senseless violence.

Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, modera... -Noam Chomsky

Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.

Noam Chomsky Quotes

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