46 Quotes By Noam Chomsky


I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.
Noam Chomsky on age

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

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.
Noam Chomsky on art

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.
Noam Chomsky on best

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.
Noam Chomsky on business

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.
Noam Chomsky on car

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!
Noam Chomsky on communication

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.
Noam Chomsky on education

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.
Noam Chomsky on education

There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
Noam Chomsky on environmental

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
Noam Chomsky on fear

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 another.
Noam Chomsky on fear

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.
Noam Chomsky on fear

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

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 on freedom

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.
Noam Chomsky on freedom

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom - along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.
Noam Chomsky on freedom

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don't have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.
Noam Chomsky on government

In the late 1990s, some of the worst terrorist atrocities in the world were what the Turkish government itself called state terror, namely massive atrocities, 80 percent of the arms coming from the United States, millions of refugees, tens of thousands of people killed, hideous repression, that's international terror, and we can go on and on.
Noam Chomsky on government

The government of Israel doesn't like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.
Noam Chomsky on government