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…
Author
Noam Chomsky
45 quotations
About Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American intellectual, philosopher, linguist, political activist, and social critic. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more th…
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by Noam ChomskyConcentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war or there won't be a world - at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some …
Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.
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 t…
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…
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.
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The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power.
Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.
I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.
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.
The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.
The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
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 he…
Humans have certain properties and characteristics which are intrinsic to them, just as every other organism does. That's human nature.
The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.
The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten huma…
The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.
The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.
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.