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People Quotes by Noam Chomsky

286 People quotes by Noam Chomsky

All People quotes Noam Chomsky’s page

Noam Chomsky says politics can be driven by irrational forces, especially when parties mobilize them. He notes that wars often involve brutal actions against civilians, calling colonial conflicts especially dirty. He also reminds us that scholars and intellectuals are not always kind, and that people deserve security and peace.

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The best defense against democracy is to distract people.

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These are fashionable people who call themselves philosophers.

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Governments don't control people like they used to.

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Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured.

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Academics are not necessarily nice people.

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If you want to scare people, you talk about evil.

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See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.

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People tend to rally around power.

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

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It's very common for the victims to understand a system better than the people who are holding the stick.

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People who criticize power in the Jewish community are regarded the way Ahab treated Elijah: You're a traitor.

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“I do not feel that we should set up people as “models”; rather actions, thoughts, principles.”

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The idea that people should be allowed to decide something about their own fate is just anathema to European elites.

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The people I find most impressive are generally unknown at the time of their actions and forgotten in history.

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People are capable of seeing the deceit they're ensnared in. They just have to make the effort.

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It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.

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How do I define God? I don't… People who find such conceptions important for themselves have every right to frame them as…

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There is a big difference between tweeting to your friend about something that is happening and having a real personal relationship with…

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I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a…

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There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage…

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The number of people killed by the sanctions in Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons…

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All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they…

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So take social media; take a look at the way they're used. In a lot of ways they're used constructively; lot of…

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Markets also have a very bad psychological effect. They drive people to a conception of themselves and society in which you're only…

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Look, the United States doesn't have political parties. In other countries, take say Europe, you can be an active member of the…

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The most dramatic case is that of the Central Americans. Why are people fleeing Central America? It's because of the atrocities the…

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I haven't seen any claim that Piraha lacks recursion, that is, that there are a finite number of sentences or sentence frames.…

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In Europe there's kind of a reaction to the European Union, kind of a move towards some kind of regionalization. It's more…

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Some of the younger people afford hope for the future. I am not opposed to reform initiatives. For example, if you can…

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I think that what's actually happening is the collapse of the Center - the centrist semi-coalitions, mildly social-democrat, mildly conservative, that have…

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Anarchism means all sort of things to different people but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society,…

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Contemporary technology could be used to eliminate ownership and management of corporations. It could be used to provide - lets say Apple…

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I've never seen a study, but my sense is that these are people who feel really aggrieved. These people think, "I've done…

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...a very terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people…

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You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system -…

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There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on…

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People are interested in authentic long-term, socialist goals, which is not what is usually called socialism. They should be thinking through carefully…

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I remember talking to, 40 years ago, one of the leading people in the government who was involved in arms control, pressing…

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If there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be…

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Go back to the Bible, the Old Testament. I mean there were people who we would call intelectuals, there, they were called…

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More by Noam Chomsky

The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory…

If you believe in democracy, why shouldn't you know what the government is doing?

It’s a shameful moment for U.S. media when it insists on being subservient to the grotesque propaganda agencies of a violent, aggressive state.

There are questions as to whether it should even exist. Who should corporations be responsive to, the management of a corporation? Theoretically they are…

Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be - protect themselves. That's why you have state secret laws.…

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…

The first thing you ought to do is verify what I present. Just because I say it doesn't make it true. So check it…

I wrote an article about the marine landing [in Haiti] right away, but barely mentioned the oil, because my article would come out two…

American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a…

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things. Noam Chomsky

There's an interesting book about that called The Third Reich and the Ivory Tower, written by Stephen H. Norwood. It has a long discussion…

This is class war on an international scale, and power is in the hands of those who control the international economic system.

There are big, extremely irrational parts of the society, and they have now been mobilized politically by the Republican establishment, hoping that these people…

There's plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information about a wide range of topics. You can't…

The 50,000 Korean mercenaries we had in Vietnam were professional killers and just massacred people outright. And the American army did plenty of that…