Quotes by
Noam Chomsky |
1928- , American linguist, philosopher, social activist
American theoretical linguist whose work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by treating language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. Through his contributions to linguistics and related fields, including cognitive psychology and the philosophies of mind and language.
Chomsky also gained a worldwide following as a political dissident for his analyses of the pernicious influence of economic elites on U.S. policies.
| 40 quotes | 2,753 visits |
Quotations
| • | Hypocrites are those who apply to others the standards that they refuse to accept for themselves. 16 |
| • | If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. 7 |
| • | There’s a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much. 6 |
| • | I was never aware of any other option but to question everything. 5 |
| • | If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it. 5 |
| • | Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow. 5 |
| • | Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice. 3 |
| • | We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas. |
| • | It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies. |
| • | Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry? |
| • | Unfortunately, you can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place |
| • | Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It’s something you have to find out for yourself. |
| • | Education is a system of imposed ignorance. |
| • | Democratic societies can’t force people. Therefore they have to control what they think. |
| • | Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech. |
| • | If something is repeated over and over as obvious, the chances are that it is obviously false. |
| • | It takes one minute to tell a lie, and an hour to refute it. |
| • | He who controls the media controls the minds of the public. |
| • | The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. |
| • | If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal. |
| • | The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind. |
| • | If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong. |
| • | How it is we have so much information, but know so little? |
| • | Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party. |
| • | Anyone who studies declassified documents soon becomes aware that government secrecy is largely an effort to protect policy makers from scrutiny by citizens, not to protect the country from enemies. |
| • | For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit. |
| • | Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. |
| • | The best defense against democracy is to distract people. |
| • | If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. |
| • | All public resources go to the rich. The poor, if they can survive in the labor market, fine. Otherwise, they die. That’s economics in a nutshell. |
| • | We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice. |
| • | 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. |
| • | Technology is basically neutral. It's kind of like a hammer. The hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull. |
| • | Africa's a wreck and it's not because it was hit by an asteroid. It's a wreck largely because it was hit by Europe. |
| • | Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile. |
| • | Whoever sets the agenda controls the outcome of the debate. |
| • | You can’t have meaningful political democracy without functioning economic democracy. |
| • | There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan. |
| • | The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history. |
| • | The uniformity and obedience of the American media, which any dictator would admire… |
