« All Power Quotes · Noam Chomsky's Page
Power Quotes by Noam Chomsky
- 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…
- The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.
- I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.
- The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to…
- Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.
- The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power.
- What the public wants is called 'politically unrealistic.' Translated into English, that means power and privilege are opposed to it.
- Democracy doesn't mean much if people have to confront concentrated systems of economic power as isolated individuals. Democracy means something if people can organize to…
- If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live…
- The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else…
- The dangers of unexamined and unregulated monopoly power, particularly in the state executive, are hardly news. The right reaction is not passive acquiescence.
- It is not that I am not a fan of American exceptionalism. That is like saying I am not a fan of the moon being…
- States are violent institutions. The government of any country, including ours, represents some sort of domestic power structure, and it's usually violent. States are violent…
- Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or…
- The media want to maintain their intimate relation to state power. They want to get leaks, they want to get invited to the press conferences.…
- The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great…
- There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown…
- It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The…
- But, that's the whole point of corporatization - to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public…
- Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of…
- The great soul of power extends far beyond states, to every domain of life, from families to international affairs. And throughout, every form of authority…
- One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your…
- As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t…
- The corporations plainly want academic scholarship to create a web of mystification that will avoid any public awareness of the way in which power actually…
- Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion. And once you are…
More Power Quotes
- Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but… — Hannah Arendt
- Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can… — Hannah Arendt
- No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once… — Hannah Arendt
- I'd take precision any day over power; as far as being tactical you know you have to see what's going on in… — Alexis Arguello
- Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and… — Aristotle
- The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. — Aristotle
- In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of… — Aristotle
- What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do. — Aristotle
- The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching. — Aristotle
- Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness. — Aristotle
- A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way… — Aristotle
- The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better. — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo