Noam Chomsky quotes

There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much. (Noam Chomsky)
The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know. View quote
Noam Chomsky
How it is we have so much information, but know so little? View quote
Noam Chomsky
If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. View quote
Noam Chomsky
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 the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. View quote
Noam Chomsky
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. View quote
Noam Chomsky
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss. (Noam Chomsky)
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. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. View quote
Noam Chomsky
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a "war against terrorism." View quote
Noam Chomsky
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. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history. View quote
Noam Chomsky
I don't say you're self-censoring - I'm sure you believe everything you're saying; but what I'm saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting. (Noam Chomsky)
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 real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them. View quote
Noam Chomsky
For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments. View quote
Noam Chomsky
"Tough love" is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Nothing can justify crimes such as those of September 11, but we can think of the United States as an "innocent victim" only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret. View quote
Noam Chomsky