Noam Chomsky quote: "In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued

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

The U.S. has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the p...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics - gr...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
NOAM CHOMSKY

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence. It is also...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Well before September 11, it was understood that with modern technology, the rich and powerful will ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the late 1990s, some of the worst terrorist atrocities in the world were what the Turkish governm...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
NOAM CHOMSKY

With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is li...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of ou...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The elections are run by the same industries that sell toothpaste on television.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It'...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you don't like what someone has to say, argue with them.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi militar...
NOAM CHOMSKY

It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Chemistry, until my childhood, not that long ago, was regarded as a calculating device. Because you ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with C...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The call for debt cancellation is welcome, but debt does not just go away.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sen...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Today, we have private airline companies, but if you take a look at a Boeing plane next time you tra...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The poorest country in South America, Bolivia, had been devastated by neoliberal economic policies.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, ther...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There's plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information...
NOAM CHOMSKY

For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.
NOAM CHOMSKY

It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell to...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Israel's demonstration of its military prowess in 1967 confirmed its status as a 'strategic asset,' ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

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

I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and dominat...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participatin...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable op...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideol...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertak...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who b...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of his...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such instit...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privile...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I belie...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The consistent anarchist should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not on...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophe...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Borders are semiporous. Capital flows more freely than people across them. on C Span.
NOAM CHOMSKY

We can imagine a society in which no one could survive as a social being because it does not corresp...
NOAM CHOMSKY

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Thanh Hoa itself is a rich agricultural province. Rice fields, a pattern of many shades of green, st...
NOAM CHOMSKY

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Dr. Karel Culik is an outstanding applied mathematician, a specialist in algebra, logic, computer sc...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. It's relatively affluen...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that af...
NOAM CHOMSKY

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, e...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Language is one component of the human cognitive capacity which happens to be fairly amenable to enq...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural d...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. ind...
NOAM CHOMSKY

U.S. Government propaganda tries to give the impression that aerial bombardment achieves near-surgic...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There's a lot of fuss on the Left about election irregularities, like, you know, the voting mach...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Everyone knows that when you look at a television ad, you do not expect to get information. You expe...
NOAM CHOMSKY

After the ignominious collapse of the Copenhagen global climate change summit in 2009, Bolivia organ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

One of the problems of organizing in the North, in the rich countries, is that people tend to think ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - a...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it a...
NOAM CHOMSKY

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one a...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated - Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at P...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a me...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.
NOAM CHOMSKY

It is easier to go to the Internet than to go to the library, undoubtedly. But the shift from no lib...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something tru...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop particip...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Civil disobedience is - it's no fun.
NOAM CHOMSKY

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than prof...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maint...
NOAM CHOMSKY

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professo...
NOAM CHOMSKY

As far as U.S. intelligence knows, Iran is developing nuclear capacities, but they don't know if...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The childcare tax credit makes some sense.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he sto...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials - literally, which is why I'm teachi...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The many questions about the bombing of Yugoslavia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - meani...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture som...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the a...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Spaniards were condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the a...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I stated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are 'among the most unspeakable crimes in history.' I t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American agg...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Two days after the Boston marathon bombings, there was a drone strike in Yemen attacking a peaceful ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you're worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it's almost all attribut...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the United States, one of the main topics of academic political science is the study of attitudes...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consen...
NOAM CHOMSKY

China is a great manufacturing center, but it's actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembl...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Latin America has much richer resources. You'd expect it to be far more advanced than East Asia,...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Immediately after 11 September, the U.S. closed down the Somali charitable network Al-Barakaat on gr...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do s...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don't have time to read 10 newspapers a day...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In September 1993, President Clinton presided over a handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzha...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In Egypt, on the eve of Tahrir Square, there was a major poll which found that overwhelmingly - 80-9...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Qatar-based 'Al-Jazeera,' the most important news channel in the Arab world, was harshly cri...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overco...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be as...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the case of the environment, there's no one to bail it out.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The U.S. is not constructing a palatial embassy, by far the largest in the world and virtually a sep...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Unlike Europe, China can't be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it th...
NOAM CHOMSKY

NATO was constructed on the - with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the 1960s, there was a point, 1968, '69, when there was a very strong antiwar movement agains...
NOAM CHOMSKY

On October 15, 1965, an estimated 70,000 people took part in large-scale anti-war demonstrations.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Public opinion in Egypt is very antagonistic to the way the dictatorship, Mubarak dictatorship, inte...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatis...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American g...
NOAM CHOMSKY

To summarize, draft resistance can make use of the inegalitarian nature of American society as a tec...
NOAM CHOMSKY

A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production, and the wage-slaver...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movement...
NOAM CHOMSKY

U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Free institutions certainly exist, but a tradition of passivity and conformism restricts their use -...
NOAM CHOMSKY

When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and re...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it...
NOAM CHOMSKY

When a politician uses the word 'folks,' we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse,...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. Th...
NOAM CHOMSKY

As international support for Obama's decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the cred...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism - mostly by nonviolent resista...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

My speculation is that the U.S. does not want to establish the principle that it has to defer to som...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Reviewing the record of American intervention in Indochina in the Pentagon Papers, one cannot fail t...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Nicaragua dealt with the problem of terrorism in exactly the right way. It followed international la...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the exten...
NOAM CHOMSKY

You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption.
NOAM CHOMSKY

For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other an...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decl...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter i...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Latin American debt that reached crisis levels from 1982 would have been sharply reduced by retu...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its...
NOAM CHOMSKY

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness whic...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other p...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
NOAM CHOMSKY

I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you're working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the k...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a soci...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world. It's ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

By very conservative estimates, Turkish repression of Kurds in the 1990s falls in the category of Ko...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The first scholarly edition of Magna Carta was published by the eminent jurist William Blackstone. I...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Occupy movement is - it was a big surprise.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient, but they can't compete with U.S. agribusiness that rel...
NOAM CHOMSKY

A tremendous amount of the entrepreneurial initiative, if you want to call it that, comes from the d...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If you're in favour of any policy - reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever - if you...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There's never been anything like the so-called Vietnam Syndrome: it's mostly a fabrication.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Federal Reserve has an official commitment to two different policies. One is to prevent inflatio...
NOAM CHOMSKY

For many of the world's conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement.
NOAM CHOMSKY

The country that consistently ranks among the highest in educational achievement is Finland. A rich ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The events of October 1962 are widely hailed as Kennedy's finest hour.
NOAM CHOMSKY

In the universities, cheap, vulnerable labor means adjuncts and graduate students.
NOAM CHOMSKY

It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, w...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In November 2008, the day of the presidential election, Israeli military forces invaded Gaza and kil...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The Oslo Accords in 1993 determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are a single territorial e...
NOAM CHOMSKY

From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which say...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Historical grammar is a study of how, say, modern English developed from Middle English, and how tha...
NOAM CHOMSKY

When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn&#...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg p...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the O...
NOAM CHOMSKY

If workers are more insecure, that's very 'healthy' for the society, because if workers ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but i...
NOAM CHOMSKY

The term 'globalisation' is conventionally used to refer to the specific form of investor-ri...
NOAM CHOMSKY

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

When I arrived in Laos and found young Americans living there, out of free choice, I was surprised. ...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop mea...
NOAM CHOMSKY

My father was a great sympathizer of Ahad Ha'am. Every Friday night we would read Hebrew togethe...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Popular struggles to bring about a freer and more just society have been resisted by violence and re...
NOAM CHOMSKY

Somebody will be able to overcome any encryption technique you use!
NOAM CHOMSKY

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.
NOAM CHOMSKY

Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let...
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.

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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.

Noam Chomsky

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