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Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky Quotes

Linguist

Noam Chomsky, born on December 7, 1928, is a renowned linguist from the United States. His research in generative grammar and transformational grammar has had a profound impact on modern linguistics. Chomsky's academic achievements extend beyond linguistics, as he is also an active political commentator and philosopher, known for his unique perspective and profound insights.

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Famous Noam Chomsky Quotes

“I'll have 15 letters today from mostly young kids who don't like what's going on and want to do something about it, and [they ask me] if I can give them some advice as to what they should do, or can I tell them what to read or something.”

Ifs Want Giving Should I Can Kids Today Young Asks Advice Letters Ask Me

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If [Barack] Obama or the boss or the newspapers or anyone else tells you they're doing this, that, or the other thing, dismiss it or assume the opposite is true, which it often is.”

Ifs Opposites Assuming Newspapers Barack Boss Often Is

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Take, for example, there is a right-wing populist uprising. It's very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that's not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances.”

People Ifs Looks Real Left Common Example Wings Radio Reactions Ridicule Right Wing Grievance Uprising Populist Talk Radio

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I listen to talk radio a lot and it's kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of the world and just enter into the world of the people who are calling in, you can understand them.”

People Ifs World Kind Interesting Calling Radio Talk Radio Knowledge Of The World

Author:Noam Chomsky

“There's an internal coherence and logic to what they get from [Rush] Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of these guys. And they sound very convincing, they're very self-confident, and they have an answer to everything - a crazy answer, but it's an answer. And it's our fault if that goes on. So one thing to be done is don't ridicule these people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a sensible answer, like, "Take over your factories."”

People Ifs Giving Real Self Done Guy Sound Answers One Thing Crazy Goes On Logic Faults Internals Over You Sensible Factories Ridicule Convincing Grievance Coherence Self Confident

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I don't even know if I ever knew - some sweatshop in Baltimore. I knew with my other relatives - some of the women were in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and men were shop boys and things like that. I happened to be in Philadelphia, but the family was in New York. I could see what the union was doing for them.It really saved their lives.”

Ifs Knows Men Boys Happened New York Unions Workers International Saved Shops Garments Philadelphia Baltimore Sweatshops

Author:Noam Chomsky

“When [Bill] Clinton came along, it sort of moderated a little bit, but Clinton had a different device for breaking unions called NAFTA [North America Free Trade Agreement]. Because the government was entirely lawless, employers could exploit NAFTA to threaten union organizers with transfer. It's illegal, but when you've got a lawless government, it doesn't matter if it's illegal. I think the number of union drives blocked increased by about 50 percent.”

“The majority of the population thinks that if the government runs healthcare, they're going to take away your freedom. At the same time, the public favors a national healthcare program.”

Ifs Thinking Government Running Program Majority Population Favors Healthcare Your Freedom

Author:Noam Chomsky

“It's roughly the case that if systems become too complex to study in sufficient depth, physics hands them over to chemistry, then to biology, then experimental psychology, and finally on to history. Roughly. These are tendencies, and they tend to distinguish roughly between hard and soft sciences.”

Ifs Hard Hands Cases Study Psychology Complexes Depth Physics Tendencies Sufficient Biology Chemistry Experimental Psychology

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Some innate capacity - some part of the human genetic endowment - enters into language acquisition. That much is uncontroversial among those who believe that humans are part of the natural world. If it were not true, would be a miracle that my granddaughter reflexively identified some elements of the blooming buzzing confusion as language-related and went on to acquire capacities of the kind that you and I are now exercising, while her pet kitten (chimp, songbird, bee...), presented with exactly the same data, could not take the first step, let alone the later ones.”

“If the rewiring of the brain that yielded recursive generation of hierarchically structured expressions took place in an individual, not a group (and there seems to be no coherent alternative), then interaction must have been a later phenomenon.”

Ifs Has Beens Seems Individual Brain Generations Groups Expression Alternatives Phenomenon Interaction

Author:Noam Chomsky

“As for organs, traits, etc., being "for" something, the notion may be a useful shorthand, but shouldn't be taken too seriously, if only because of the ubiquitous phenomenon of exaptation.”

Ifs May Taken Notion Etc Phenomenon Traits Organs Shorthand

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If the mutation is partially transmitted to offspring, they too would have the advantage. And over time it might have come to dominate a small breeding group.”

Ifs Might Groups Advantage Breeding Offspring Mutation

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I haven't seen any claim that Piraha lacks recursion, that is, that there are a finite number of sentences or sentence frames. If that's so, it would mean that the speakers of this language aren't making use of a capacity that they surely have, a normal situation; plenty of people throughout history would drown if they fall into water.”

People Ifs Mean Use Fall Language Water Numbers Situation Havens Normal Capacity Claims Sentences Plenty Speakers Finite Recursion Finite Number

Author:Noam Chomsky

“No one seriously doubts that if Piraha children are brought up in Boston they'll be speaking Boston English, that is, that the capacities are present, unlike other animals, as far as is known. There's no challenge to the theory - not mine, but everyone's - that the human language faculty provides the means for generation of an infinite array of structured expressions.”

Ifs Humans Mean Children Language Challenges Animal Known Doubt Generations Mines Expression Theory Capacity Infinite Faculty Boston Human Language

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If scientists and scholars were to become "collectively self-organised and consciously activist" today, they would probably devote themselves to service to state and private power. Those who have different goals should (and do) become organized and activist.”

Ifs Should Different Self States Today Goal Scientist Organized Activist Scholar Organised

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If there are lessons to be drawn from the sciences, then that should be the concern of everyone, including scientists to the extent that they can make a contribution.”

Ifs Should Lessons Concern Scientist Including Contribution

Author:Noam Chomsky

“When people say do you believe in God? what do they mean by it? Do I believe in some spiritual force in the world? In a way, yes. People have thoughts, emotions. If you want to call that a spiritual force, okay. But unless there's some clarification of what we're supposed to believe in or disbelieve in, I can't answer.”

People Ifs World Way Want Believe Mean I Can Spiritual Force I Believe Answers Emotion Okay I Believe In Believe In God Clarification

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you read people like say Bruce Blair one of the leading, most sober, knowledgeable specialists, he says, look, [Donald Trump] statements are all over the map, but his personality is frightening, he's a complete megalomaniac.”

People Ifs Looks Personality Trump Statements Maps Frightening Sober Specialists Knowledgeable Blair Megalomaniacs

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Over the years, there's been case after case when there were very narrow decisions that had to be made about whether to launch nuclear weapons in serious cases. What is this guy [Donald Trump] going to do if his vaunted negotiating skills fail, if somebody doesn't do what he says? Is he going to say, "Okay we'll nuke them? We're done?"”

Ifs Years Made Done Guy Decision Cases Failing Serious Trump Skills Weapons Okay Nuclear Nuclear Weapons This Guy Negotiating Nukes

Author:Noam Chomsky

“It happened: the first 9/11, it happened on September 11, 1973, in Chile. We did it. Was that interfering or hacking a party? This record is all over the world, constantly overthrowing governments, invading, forcing people to follow what we call democracy, as in the cases I mentioned. As I say, if every charge is accurate, it's a joke, and I'm sure half the world is collapsing in laughter about this, because people outside the United States know it. You don't have to tell people in Chile about the first 9/11.”

People Ifs Knows World Firsts States Government United Party Half Cases United States Democracy Records Happened Laughter Jokes Accurate September Interfere September 11 Hacking Chile Invading

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[Mikhail] Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn't move to East Germany. And [George] Bush and [James] Baker promised verbally, that's critical, verbally that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east," which meant East Germany. Nobody was talking about anything farther at the time. They would not expand one inch to the east. Now that was a verbal promise. It was never written. NATO immediately expanded to East Germany.”

Ifs Said Moving Talking Written Promise Agree Critical East Germany Inches Nato Bakers Concessions Unification Adherence Gorbachev East Germany

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[Mikhail] Gorbachev complained. He was told look, there's nothing on paper. People didn't actually say it but the implication was look, if you are dumb enough to take faith in a gentleman's agreement with us, that's your problem. NATO expanded to East Germany.”

People Ifs Looks Enough Problem Paper East Dumb Gentleman Germany Agreement Implications Nato Gorbachev East Germany

Author:Noam Chomsky

“In southern culture, possession of a gun became kind of a sign of manhood, not just because of slaves but other white men. If you had a gun, you're not going to push me around. You know, I'm not one of those guys you can kick in the face.”

Ifs Knows Men Kind Faces Guy Culture White Gun Slave Possession Kicks Southern Manhood White Man Southern Culture

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The Russians were doing a lot of rotten things, you can point to them. But the idea that if you consider what Hans Morgenthau called "I called abuse of reality," the picture of the world was almost the opposite of what they presented. But somehow this sells and is continually repeated, at least in this kind of situation.”

Ifs World Kind Ideas Reality Situation Opposites Abuse Sells Rotten

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you look back to the anti-intervention movements, what were they? Let's take the Vietnam War - the biggest crime since the Second World War. You couldn't be opposed to the war for years. The mainstream liberal intellectuals were enthusiastically in support of the war. In Boston, a liberal city where I was, we literally couldn't have a public demonstration without it being violently broken up, with the liberal press applauding, until late 1966.”

Ifs World Years Looks War Cities Support Crime Movement Broken Late Presses War Of The Worlds Vietnam Mainstream Boston Intervention Demonstration Vietnam War Second World War Broken Up

Author:Noam Chomsky

“So if you look at the writings of intellectuals, there are two kinds. One said, l"Look, if we fought harder we could have won.But the others, who were way at the left, people like Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, way out in left stream, his view in 1975 was the Vietnam war began with blundering efforts to do good. But by 1969, it was clear that it was a disaster, that was too costly to us.”

People Ifs Way Writing Looks Kind Said Two War Left Views Effort Clear New York Harder Disaster Streams Vietnam Vietnam War New York Times

Author:Noam Chomsky

“That's a point that Dan Ellsberg has made for years. He said it's kind of like if you and I go into a grocery store to rob it, and I have a gun. The guy may give you the money in the cash register. I'm using the gun even if I don't shoot. Well that's nuclear weapons - essential to post-war deterrence - they cast a shadow over everything.”

Ifs Giving Years Wells Kind May Made Said War Guy Essentials Weapons Gun Shadow Casts Stores Nuclear Posts Cash Nuclear Weapons Groceries Register Grocery Stores Post War Deterrence

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[With] military threats, you can see them actually, you can imagine it. People don't think about it enough. But if you think about it for a minute, you can see that a nuclear attack could be the end of everything.”

People Ifs Thinking Ends Enough Imagine Minutes Military Threat Nuclear

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Like most terms of political discourse, socialism has more or less, lost its meaning. Socialism used to mean something. If you go back far enough it meant basically control of production by producers, elimination of wage labor, democratization of all spheres of life; production, commerce, education, media, workers control of factories, community control of communities, and so on. That was socialism once. But it hasn't meant that for a hundred years. Socialism meant something different.”

“Greece, alone, is in a very vulnerable position. If the Greeks had had support from progressive left and popular forces elsewhere in Europe they might have been able to resist the demands of the Troika, but they had almost no support. Not even from Portugal, Spain, or other left forces. They were left alone.”

Ifs Has Beens Might Able Left Force Support Position Demand Europe Vulnerable Greek Progressive Elsewhere Spain Might Have Been Greece Left Alone Portugal

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you look at US internal documents, they explain very clearly what the threat of Cuba was. So, back in the early 1960s the State Department described the threat of Cuba as Castro's successful defiance of US policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine established the US claim to dominate the Western hemisphere and Castro was successfully defying that. That's not tolerable. It is like somebody saying "let's have democracy in Greece," and we just can't tolerate that so we have to destroy the threat at its roots.”

“Occupy was not a movement, it was a tactic. You can't sit forever in a park near Wall Street. You can't do it for more than a few months. It was a tactic I had not predicted. If people asked me, I would have said "don't do it." But it was a great success, an enormous success, with a big impact on people's thinking, on people's actions.”

People Ifs Thinking Said Bigs Action Forever Streets Movement Wall Months Impact Enormous Parks Tactics Great Success Big Impact

Author:Noam Chomsky

“We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.”

Ifs Humans Looks States Form Human Nature Periods Capitalism Selfishness Interaction Altruism Human History Human Society

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If the most important revolutionary part of the George W. Bush Doctrine is that states that harbor terrorists are terrorist states, what do we conclude from that? We conclude exactly what Kissinger was kind enough to say: These doctrines are unilateral. They are not intended as doctrines of international law or doctrines of international affairs. They are doctrines that grant the U.S. the right to use force and violence and to harbor terrorists, but not anyone else.”

Ifs Kind Important States Enough Use Law Force Violence Affair International Terrorist Doctrine Revolutionary Grants Harbors International Law International Affairs Kissinger

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you want to find weapons of destruction, you can find them all over the place. Take, say, Israel. There is a very great concern right now about proliferation of nuclear weapons, as there should be. Israel has a couple of hundred nuclear weapons and also chemical and biological weapons. This stockpile is not only a threat in itself but encourages others to proliferate in reaction and in self-defense. Is anybody saying anything about this?”

Ifs Want Should Self Couple Right Now Weapons Hundred Concern Destruction Threat Israel Defense Nuclear Reactions Chemicals Nuclear Weapons Self Defense Proliferation Biological Weapons

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you want to make changes in the world, you're going to have to be there day after day doing the boring, straightforward work of getting a couple of people interested and building a slightly bigger organization and carrying out the next move and suffering frustration and finally getting somewhere. That's how the world changes.”

People Ifs World Want Moving Suffering Next Building Couple Organization Bigger Boring Frustration Making Changes Straightforward Next Move

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If we understood, as we do not, the physical bases for intellectual structures, I have little doubt that we would find structures in the brain for social interactions, or language, or analysis of personality - a whole variety of systems developed on the basis of a specific biological endowment.”

Ifs Littles Whole Language Social Brain Doubt Personality Intellectual Understood Bases Structure Variety Analysis Interaction Endowment Social Interaction

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I don't think there is any scientific evidence about the question of whether we think only in language or not. But introspection indicates pretty clearly that we don't think in language necessarily. We also think in visual images, we think in terms of situations and events, and so on, and many times we can't even express in words what the content of our thinking is. And even if we are able to express it in words, it is a common experience to say something and then to recognize that it is not what we meant, that it is something else.”

Ifs Thinking Able Language Term Common Situation Events Evidence Visuals Introspection Scientific Evidence Common Experience Visual Images

Author:Noam Chomsky

“For us, we are all very different, our languages are very different, and our societies are very different. But if we could extract ourselves from our point of view and sort of look down at human life the way a biologist looks at other organisms, I think we could see it a different way.”

Ifs Thinking Way Humans Looks Different Language Views Point Of View Human Life Different Ways Our Society Organisms Biologist

Author:Noam Chomsky

“There is no evolutionary pressure to create minds capable of forming sciences; it just happened. Evolutionary pressure has not led to higher rates of reproduction for people capable of solving scientific problems or creating new scientific ideas. So if, in fact, the science-forming capacities evolved for other reasons, it would not be too surprising if those particular structures that have developed proved to be rather special in their nature, reflecting the contingencies of their evolution or the working of physical law.”

People Ifs Mind Ideas Reason Facts Problem Law Happened Special Particular Evolution Higher Creating Capable Capacity Pressure Structure Rate Surprising Reflecting Reproduction Contingency

Author:Noam Chomsky

“To construct a scientific theory from the data and to be able to recognize that it is a reasonable theory is possible only if there are some very sharp restrictive principles that lead you to go in one direction and not in another direction. Otherwise, you wouldn't have science at all, merely randomly chosen hypotheses.”

Ifs Able Principles Theory Chosen Data Reasonable Constructs Hypothesis One Direction Scientific Theory

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Our minds are specifically adapted to developing certain theories, and we have a science if the theories that are available to our minds happen to be close to true. Well, there is no particular reason to suppose that the intersection of true theories and theories that are accessible to the mind is very large. It may not be very large.”

Ifs Mind Wells May Reason Happens Certain Particular Theory Available Developing Adapted Intersections

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If humans are organisms like every other organism - which they are - then we should expect that if there are some domains where real scientific progress is possible, then there are others where it is not.”

Ifs Should Humans Real Progress Organisms Domain Scientific Progress

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If the NAACP were to impose a control of something towards all, then I would staunchly oppose it.”

Author:Noam Chomsky

“People will find some ways of identifying themselves, becoming associated with others, taking part in something. They're going to do it some way or other. If they don't have the options of participation in labor unions, political organizations that actually function, they'll find other ways. Religious fundamentalism is a classic example.”

People Ifs Way Political Religious Example Becoming Labor Organization Function Unions Classic Fundamentalism Participation Identifying Religious Fundamentalism Labor Union

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Hume's paradox does hold: power is in the hands of the governed. If they refuse to accept it, you're in trouble, no matter how many guns you have.”

Ifs Doe Matter Hands Accepting Trouble Gun Refuse Paradox Hume

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Andorrans deserve much better than the rule of superstitious hysterics and extreme authoritarians, who try to instill obedience to their Holy Texts and chosen Divinities - and we should not fail to see that the terms are appropriate, if anything too kind.”

Ifs Should Trying Kind Term Failing Holy Deserve Extremes Chosen Obedience Divinity Appropriate Superstitious Instill

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Do I believe in God? Can't answer, I'm afraid. I'm not being flippant, but I don't understand the question. What is it that I am supposed to believe or not believe in? Are you asking whether I believe there is something not in the universe (or the universes, if there are (maybe infinitely) many of them), and that somehow stands above them? I've never heard of any reason for believing that.”

Ifs Believe Reason Universe I Believe Answers Heard Asking I Believe In Believe In God I Believe In God Flippant

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Biblical archaeology was developed early in this century in an effort to substantiate the authenticity of the Biblical account. It's by now generally recognized in Biblical scholarship that it has done the opposite. The Bible is not a historical text, and has only vague resemblances to what took place, as far as can be reconstructed. For example, whether Israel ever existed is not clear; if so, it was probably a small kingdom somewhere in the hills, apparently virtually unknown to the Egyptians.”

Ifs Done Effort Clear Century Example Opposites Accounts Historical Israel Kingdoms Authenticity Hills Biblical Vague Scholarship Resemblance Archaeology

Author:Noam Chomsky

About the Author

Born: December 7, 1928
Known for: Linguist
Quotes: 1825

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