Noam Chomsky

Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire.

The kind of work that should be the main part of life is the kind of work you would want to do if you weren’t being paid for it. It’s work that comes out of your own internal needs, interests and concerns.

Since the white working class cannot be mobilized to support the class enemy on the basis of their actual programs, the ‘radical insurgency’ called ‘the Republican Party’ appeals to its constituency on what are called ‘social-cultural issues’: religion, fear, racism, nationalism.

Right before the 2000 [U.S.] elections, about 75 percent regarded it as virtually meaningless, some game involving rich contributors, party managers, and candidates who are trained to project images that conceal issues, but might pick up some votes.

Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry?

If you’re teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.

I cannot forgive him [Nelson Mandela] for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize with his jailer De Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think De Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed.

Just take a look at the Nazi conquest of nice, civilized Western Europe….Who was rounding up the Jews? Local people, often. In France they were rounding them up faster than the Nazis could handle them. The Nazis also used Jews to control Jews.

So for example, worker- and community- controlled enterprises are germs of a future society within the present one. And those not only can be developed, but are being developed.

The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show)…Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that.

About 70% of the public, the lowest 70% on the income scale, are pretty much disenfranchised. Their attitudes have no detectable influence on the policies of their own representatives. As you move up the scale you get a bit more influence. When you get to the top, policy is made.

Oh my goodness gracious, what you can buy off the Internet in terms of overhead photography. A trained ape can know an awful lot of what is going on in this world, just by punching on his mouse, for a relatively modest cost.

If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.

The business classes are very class-conscious-they’re constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.

So investors don’t go down to the television studio and make sure that the local talk show host or news director is doing what they want. On the other hand, there are other complex mechanisms which make it fairly certain that they will do what the owners and investors want.

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.

Terrorism has no nationality or religion.

True friends of liberty… ought constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of government from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed; no private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with impunity to the caprices of a government… [because] men accustom themselves to sacrifice private interest without scruple and to trample on the rights of individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public purpose.

[on Donald Trump] seems determined to add to the dangers [in the global situation] by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran and backing a new nuclear arms race.

[on Michelle Obama] She’s something of a force of nature – one of the rare few who are truly present with whomever she’s talking to. Whether it’s a veteran, a child, a working mother, or movie star, she treats everyone the same, with respect and full attention.

Israeli interests are not necessarily in harmony with the American interests.