Andrew Rusk

37 Political Noam Chomsky Quotes That Will Challenge Your Beliefs

Quotes from one of the most radical and interdisciplinary intellectuals working in the United States today. Sourced from Noam Chomsky's books, interviews, and essays. 
Chris Lavergne
July 6, 2016
“John Pilger: Does that right of free expression, in your view, extent to everybody?  

Noam Chomsky: I mean, if we don’t believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. 

John Pilger: Would you support the right of terrorists calling for murder of Salman Rushdie to speak in that way? 

Noam Chomsky: To speak yes, but I think that Bentham’s standard is the one that should be observed… Suppose you and I walk into a store and you have a gun and I tell you to shoot the store owner. Well, that’s speech but it’s not protected because that’s speech which is part of a violent act. 

John Pilger: But shouldn’t that be, as in the case of the racist being allowed to speak, shouldn’t that be simply, and indeed it is in this country, illegal. I mean it’s incitement to murder. 

Noam Chomsky: You have to ask whether it is incitement to imminent violent action. Now you know there’s no precise litmus test that tells you where to draw the line. But freedom of speech is an important enough to value so that you need an extraordinary argument to overcome it. I think there are such cases. I gave one. For example, somebody who says ‘shoot' when someone else has a gun. OK. That’s crossing the line. But I don’t think there are many cases that cross the line.”
— Noam Chomsky, Freedom of Speech: Words are Not Deeds
Tagged: Freedom of Speech, Crossing The Line
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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 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 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
“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
“Hypocrites are those who apply to others the standards that they refuse to accept for themselves.”
— Noam Chomsky, Media Control
Tagged: Hypocrisy
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
Tagged: Power
“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
“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
“The United States is like a shattered peasant society.”
— Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky
Tagged: Opinions, Political Landscapes, Limited Debate
“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
“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
“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
“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 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
“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
“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
“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