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 | 4,624 visits |
Quotations
| • | Hypocrites are those who apply to others the standards that they refuse to accept for themselves. 19 |
| • | If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. 9 |
| • | There’s a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much. 7 |
| • | If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it. 7 |
| • | Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow. 6 |
| • | I was never aware of any other option but to question everything. 6 |
| • | 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. 4 |
| • | The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history. 2 |
| • | 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. 2 |
| • | The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. 2 |
| • | The uniformity and obedience of the American media, which any dictator would admire… 1 |
| • | There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan. 1 |
| • | You can’t have meaningful political democracy without functioning economic democracy. 1 |
| • | Whoever sets the agenda controls the outcome of the debate. 1 |
| • | Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. 1 |
| • | The best defense against democracy is to distract people. 1 |
| • | Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. 1 |
| • | For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit. 1 |
| • | Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party. 1 |
| • | How it is we have so much information, but know so little? 1 |
| • | If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal. 1 |
| • | He who controls the media controls the minds of the public. 1 |
| • | It takes one minute to tell a lie, and an hour to refute it. 1 |
| • | If something is repeated over and over as obvious, the chances are that it is obviously false. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | Democratic societies can’t force people. Therefore they have to control what they think. 1 |
| • | Education is a system of imposed ignorance. 1 |
| • | Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It’s something you have to find out for yourself. 1 |
| • | Unfortunately, you can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place 1 |
| • | Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry? 1 |
| • | It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies. 1 |
| • | We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas. 1 |
