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Freedom Quotes by Noam Chomsky

66 Freedom quotes by Noam Chomsky

All Freedom quotes Noam Chomsky’s page

Noam Chomsky points out that dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, never brings social liberation. He warns that huge corporations can turn society into a totalitarian system, and he notes that the United States unusually lacks strong restraints on freedom of expression.

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They, students have a degree of freedom that nobody else has.

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Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift.

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It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence

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Latin America, for the first time in 500 years, is moving towards a degree of independence.

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Iran is independent and independence is not tolerated.

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The answer to subversion of democracy is more democracy, more freedom, more justice.

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“The workers who built the settlements and produced the export crops may now enjoy their freedom in the world’s largest prison.58”

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We don't live in tyrannies, you know, the king doesn't decide what's legitimate, and there's much more freedom than there was in…

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It seems self-evident that we should want people to be free, to be able to play an active part in making decisions…

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As long as each individual is facing the television tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege

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For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices…

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

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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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We should therefore be opposed to institutional barriers to that freedom: Military dictatorships, for example. Or states run by a Central Committee.

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...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a…

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In 1949, China declared independence - an event known in Western discourse as 'the loss of China' in the U.S. - with…

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I am not too happy with terms like “the left”, to be honest. And I don’t use it much….if by “the left”…

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The majority of the population thinks that if the government runs healthcare, they're going to take away your freedom. At the same…

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Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech,…

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In the sciences particularly the large public universities must and do take an active role in fostering creativity and independence; otherwise the…

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Unaccountable private power concentrations that dominate economic and social life have the means to seek to "regiment the public mind," and become…

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“With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject…

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From 1962 to 1965 the US was dedicated to try to prevent the independence of South Vietnam, the reason was of course…

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There's something deeply rooted in American culture. You can pretty much identify what it was. You take a look at the history.…

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Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want…

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“Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a…

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The crime of liberation theology was that it takes the Gospels seriously. That's unacceptable. The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you…

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“It's intellectual freedom when a journalist can understand that 2 + 2 = 4; that's what Orwell was writing about in 1984.…

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I had relatives in New York City who I stayed with. And in those days, the area from Union Square down Fourth…

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“Now a federated, decentralized system of free associations, incorporating economic as well as other social institutions, would be what I refer to…

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“Well, that's pretty much what the schools are like, I think: they reward discipline and obedience, and they punish independence of mind.…

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“It's amazing in Europe: Europe has become extraordinarily colonized culturally by the United States, to an extent that is almost unbelievable―Europeans aren't…

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“Since its origins, socialism has meant the liberation of working people from exploitation. As the Marxist theoretician Anton Pannekoek observed, “this goal…

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“These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt’s Limits of State Action, Kant’s insistence,…

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In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may…

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Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent - and rhetoric about bestowing…

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Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift, and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal

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“[...] dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, can never lead to social liberation.”

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In my experience at least, the large public universities do not fall behind in fostering creativity and independence; often the contrary.

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With regard to freedom of expression there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject…

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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…