Noam Chomsky

It was not known in 1945 that we were not only entering the nuclear age, but entering a new geological epoch, what geologists call the Anthropocene, an epoch in which human activity is having severe and deleterious effects on the environment in which human and other life can survive.

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

Education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own because that is what you’re going to do during your life, not just absorb materials given to you by the outside, and repeat it.

The Thirteenth Amendment formally ended slavery, but a decade later “slavery by another name” (also the title of an important study by Douglas A. Blackmon) was introduced. Black life was criminalized by overly harsh codes that targeted black people.

From the point of view of the policy makers, the long-term future of the country doesn’t matter so much. What matters is just those sectors of society that sustain concentrated privilege.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the enlightenment.

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

I like beer

Why are we putting people who are already in a vulnerable position through this dreadful, appalling stress?

The difference between a good govt. system and its poor administration is easily explained; the chief administrators are not Bosses in the best sense.

A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country.

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.

With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

Social Security is actually in pretty good shape despite what everybody screams about. But if you can defund it, it won’t be in good shape. And there is a standard technique of privatization, namely defund what you want to privatize.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.

It was in the townships where we shed so much blood. Nothing could have been achieved without the sacrifice of the people. Black people.

This debate is now about injustice and inequality. Two years ago, it would have been about benefits scroungers. We’ve changed the language and changed the mood. Labour is in good heart.

The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place.

The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the safety of every citizen as much as possible. … Political liberty does not consist in the notion that a man may do whatever he pleases; liberty is the right to do whatsoever the laws allow. … The equality of the citizens consists in that they should all be subject to the same laws.

You don’t have to set limits on your talent and your ambition – or those of your children. You don’t have to be grateful to survive in a world made by others.