Noam Chomsky Quotes

590 quotes in 6148 categories

• If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
• The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
• Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.
• All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that…
• In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but…
• 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.
• Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
• If you don't like what someone has to say, argue with them.
• If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
• The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.
• If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
• In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to…
• If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
• You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.
• Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.
• The public is not to see where power lies, how it shapes policy, and for what ends. Rather, people are to hate and fear one…
• There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.
• To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.
• States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
• I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

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