Noam Chomsky Quotes

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Noam Chomsky

Profession : Activist

Birth : December 7, 1928

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.

Noam Chomsky

If workers are more insecure, that's very 'healthy' for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won't ask for wages, they won't go on strike, they won't call for benefits; they'll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that's optimal for corporations' economic health.

Noam Chomsky

If you're worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it's almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program.

Noam Chomsky

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.

Noam Chomsky

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

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky