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Noam Chomsky Quotes

Total quotes: 46
“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think.”
— Noam Chomsky
Tagged: Students, loans, student loan, Debt, Society, system
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
— Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
“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.’”
— Noam Chomsky, Grief One Day at a Time: 365 Meditations to Help You Heal After Loss
Tagged: Optimism, Healing
“Hypocrites are those who apply to others the standards that they refuse to accept for themselves.”
— Noam Chomsky, Media Control
Tagged: Hypocrisy
“If we have the choice between trusting in centralized power to make the right decision, or trusting in free associations of libertarian communities to make that decision, I would rather trust the latter. And the reason is that I think that they can serve to maximize decent human instincts, whereas a system of centralized power will tend in a general way to maximize one of the worst of human instincts, namely the instinct of rapaciousness, of destructiveness, of accumulating power to oneself and destroying others.”
— Noam Chomsky, Human Nature: Justice versus Power
Tagged: Libertarianism, Localism, Against Universal Power, Centralization vs. Distriubtion, Political Architectures, Central Control
“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
— Noam Chomsky, Interview with Noam Chomsky (September 14, 1993)
Tagged: Ideas, Good Ideas, Heroes
“It’s very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they’re ineffective, they can’t defend themselves against indoctrination, they can’t even figure out what they think.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
“I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices.”
— Noam Chomsky, Human Nature: Justice versus Power
Tagged: When Is Violence Appropriate?, Fighting Back, The Nuances of Non-Violence
“Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice.”
— Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent
Tagged: Science
“Unless the powerful are capable of learning to respect the dignity of their victims, impassable barriers will remain, and the world will be doomed to violence, cruelty, and bitter suffering.”
— Noam Chomsky, Violence and Dignity: Reflections on the Middle East
Tagged: Violence, Powerful, Cruelty, Sad World, Middle East
“There are, by one count, 20,000 more public relations agents working to doctor the news today than there are journalists writing it.”
— Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Tagged: Media, Media Manipulation, Public Relations
“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.”
— Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on the Environment, Corporate Propaganda and Externalities
Tagged: Ideas, Conventional Thought, Being Weird
“The United States has the highest level of child poverty of any industrial society, followed by the rest of the English-speaking world.”
— Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order
Tagged: The United States, Poverty
“One conception of democracy has it that a democratic society is one in which the public has the means to participate in some meaningful way in the management of their own affairs and the means of information are open and free.”
— Noam Chomsky, Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Series)
Tagged: Democracy, Open Information
“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”
— Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky "How To Stop Terrorism?"
Tagged: Terrorism
“Large corporations have resources to influence media and overwhelm the political process, and do so accordingly.”
— Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order
Tagged: Capitalism, Big Companies, Corporatism, Media Manipulation
“The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.”
— Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order
Tagged: Democracy, Muddle Policy
“The countries that have developed economically are those which were not colonized by the West; every country that was colonized by the West is a total wreck.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
Tagged: Power, The West, Colonization
“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!”
— Noam Chomsky, theguardian.com
Tagged: Communications, Evolution, Technological Time, Understanding Time, History Of Communication
“That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything.”
— Noam Chomsky, Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Series)
Tagged: Propaganda, Thought Control
“Tough love is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else.”
— Noam Chomsky, Powers and Prospects
Tagged: Rich People
“Interviewer: You have been very critical of the press. What would you like the press to do?

Noam Chomsky: It’s very simple. I’d like the press to tell the truth about important things.”
— Noam Chomsky, A Roadmap to a Just World — People Reanimating Democracy
Tagged: Press, Media
“I’ve never seen a child who didn’t want to build something out of blocks, or learn something new, or try the next task. And the only reason why adults aren’t like that is, I suppose, that they have been sent to school and other oppressive institutions, which have driven that out of them.”
— Noam Chomsky, Human Nature: Justice versus Power
Tagged: Schools as Prisons, Institutional Weakening of the Will
“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
— Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World
Tagged: Double Standards, Power, Money, Crime, White Collar Crime
“The United States is like a shattered peasant society.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
Tagged: Opinions, Political Landscapes, Limited Debate
“One might ask why tobacco is legal and marijuana not. A possible answer is suggested by the nature of the crop. Marijuana can be grown almost anywhere, with little difficulty. It might not be easily marketable by major corporations. Tobacco is quite another story.”
— Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Tagged: Marijuana, Tobacco, Weed, Legalization of Marijuana
“The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime. Straight-out war crime.”
— Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Bill Maher(11.10.04)
Tagged: Iraq, War
“Only an aroused public can end this folly before it ends us.”
— Noam Chomsky, Hopes And Prospects (Amnesty International Lecture)
Tagged: Social Change, Outrage Culture
“Don’t ridicule, organize.”
— Noam Chomsky, Hopes And Prospects (Amnesty International Lecture)
Tagged: Social Change
“What are called opinions ‘on the left’ and ‘on the right’ in the media represent only a limited spectrum of debate, which reflects the range of needs of private power—but there’s essentially nothing beyond those ‘acceptable’ positions.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
Tagged: Opinions, Political Landscapes, Limited Debate
“Donald Trump is a clown — literally, he could be in the circus. He’s getting huge support from people who are angry at everything. Mostly white males. Working-class, middle-class, poor white males. And their wives and traditional families. They are furious about everything.”
— Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky slams Trump: ‘He’s a clown — literally, he could be in the circus’
Tagged: Donald Trump, Clowns, Election 2016, Politicians As Clowns
“You know better than I do what has to be done, the kind of problems you face. Just got ahead and do what has to be done. Don’t be intimidated, don’t be frightened, and recognize that the future can be in our hands if we’re willing to grasp it.”
— Noam Chomsky, Corporate business models are hurting American universities
Tagged: Get To Work, Your Mission, Your Life Purpose, Your Meaning, Inspirational
““You’ve got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they’re properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they’re not competent to think. Therefore it’s important to distract them and marginalize them.””
— Noam Chomsky, Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Series)
Tagged: Media Fear, Media Manipulation, Fear, Marginalization Tactics
“The economic consequences of these policies have been the same just about everywhere, and exactly what one would expect: a massive increase in social and economic inequality, a marked increase in severe deprivation for the poorest nations and peoples of the world, a disastrous global environment, an unstable global economy and an unprecedented bonanza for the wealthy.”
— Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order
Tagged: Economic Inequality, Global Economics
“The U.S. media do not function in the manner of the propaganda system of a totalitarian state. Rather, they permit—indeed, encourage—spirited debate, criticism, and dissent, as long as these remain faithfully within the system of presuppositions and principles that constitute an elite consensus, a system so powerful as to be internalized largely without awareness.”
— Herman Edward, Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Tagged: Media, Quiet Power, U.S Media
“The technical structure of the media virtually compels adherence to conventional thoughts; nothing else can be expressed between two commercials, or in seven hundred words, without the appearance of absurdity that is difficult to avoid when one is challenging familiar doctrine with no opportunity to develop facts or argument.”
— Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Tagged: Media, Revolution
“You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little bit of light here and there, but there’s a tremendous amount of darkness, which is a challenge. I think life would be pretty boring if we understood everything. It’s better if we don’t understand anything… and know that we don’t, that’s the important part.”
— Noam Chomsky
Tagged: Knowledge, Science, Understanding, Understanding Life
“I would like to see serious and significant steps made to put an end to the use of fossil fuels, to create sustainable energy systems and to save the world – as much as we can – from likely environmental catastrophe. I would move very quickly towards de-escalating military confrontations, which are quite serious, and move towards fulfilling our legal obligation to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I would like countries to become democracies, not plutocracies.”
— Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky on Donald Trump: 'Almost a death knell for the human species'
Tagged: Fossi Fuels, Sustainable Energy
“In the past, the United States has sometimes, kind of sardonically, been described as a one-party state: the business party with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That’s no longer true. It’s still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction. The faction is moderate Republicans, who are now called Democrats. There are virtually no moderate Republicans in what’s called the Republican Party and virtually no liberal Democrats in what’s called the Democratic [sic] Party. It’s basically a party of what would be moderate Republicans and similarly, Richard Nixon would be way at the left of the political spectrum today. Eisenhower would be in outer space. There is still something called the Republican Party, but it long ago abandoned any pretence of being a normal parliamentary party. It’s in lock-step service to the very rich and the corporate sector and has a catechism that everyone has to chant in unison, kind of like the old Communist Party. The distinguished conservative commentator, one of the most respected – Norman Ornstein – describes today’s Republican Party as, in his words, ‘a radical insurgency – ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, dismissive of its political opposition’ – a serious danger to the society, as he points out.”
— Noam Chomsky, Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy
Tagged: The United States, US Politics
“The world is too complex for history to repeat, but there are nevertheless lessons to keep in mind. There is no shortage of tasks for those who choose the vocation of critical intellectuals, whatever their station in life. They can seek to sweep away the mists of carefully contrived illusion and reveal the stark reality. They can become directly engaged in popular struggles, helping to organize the countless Joe Stacks who are destroying themselves, and maybe the world, and to join them in leading the way the way to a better future.”
— Noam Chomsky, The Radical Intellectual
Tagged: Intellectuals
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