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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

“Of course, everybody says they're for peace. Hitler was for peace. Everybody is for peace. The question is: What kind of peace?”

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there's layer after layer of management - a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.”

People Ifs Kind Doe Force Economic Industry Waste Management University Elsewhere Layers Domination Administrative

Author:Noam Chomsky

“In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.”

Kind Ends Form Individual Social Common Achieve Information Gains Concern Ideals Focused Collections Lacking Organisation Social Control

Author:Noam Chomsky

“If you're working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.”

People Ifs Trying Kind Children Ends Age Hours Week Television Our Children Income Your Children Aspiration Hopeless Association

Author:Noam Chomsky

“In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption.”

“Private sector unionization is down to practically seven percent. Meanwhile the public sector unions have kind of sustained themselves [even] under attack, but in the last few years, there's been a sharp [increase in the] attack on public sector unions, which Barack Obama has participated in, in fact. When you freeze salaries of federal workers, that's equivalent to taxing public sector people.”

People Years Kind Facts Lasts Percent Increase Unions Seven Workers Barack Salary Freeze Private Sector Public Sector

Author:Noam Chomsky

“France has not been able to come to terms with the fact that it's not a major power anymore. I mean even before the Second World War Paris was one of the main centers of intellectual and cultural life. But now Paris is a kind of subsidiary of Germany, their traditional enemy and they can't come to terms with it.”

World Kind Mean War Facts Able Term Enemy Majors Intellectual Traditional France Paris War Of The Worlds Germany Second World War

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Terror became a big issue when the Reagan Administration came in. They immediately announced [their plans] and kind of disparaged Carter's alleged human rights programs. The main issue is state-directed international terrorism. Right at that time that big industry developed. That's when you start getting the academic departments on terrorism.”

Humans Kind States Bigs Issues Rights Plans Industry Program International Human Rights Terror Terrorism Administration Department Academic Carter International Terrorism

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Well, in fact if you look at the Trump voters, you take a look at their attitudes it's not all that different. In some respects they're similar. They're an older version of the Sanders people. So a lot of it is racist and you have that sort of thing, but if you look at their views on say health, education, and so on, it's kind of the same as Sanders.”

People Ifs Wells Looks Kind Different Facts Views Attitude Trump Versions Racist Voters Health Education

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The time to be political is not when you have parties and carnivals, it's kind of a show, the election. It affects something but not that much. And focusing all the attention on it is I think a mistake.”

Thinking Kind Shows Political Party Attention Mistake Election Carnivals

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I think there are all kinds of intrusions into private rights that make use of contemporary technology.”

Thinking Kind Use Technology Rights Contemporary All Kinds Intrusion

Author:Noam Chomsky

“What Wikileaks exposed is kind of superficial in a way.”

Way Kind Exposed Superficial Wikileaks

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Wikileaks is providing information on what ambassadors are sending to Washington and things like that. Maybe some of that has a right to some kind of secrecy, but there is a heavy burden and I think its pretty hard to meet. I haven't read everything from Wikileaks by any means but the parts that I have read and seen I think are things the public should know.”

Thinking Knows Should Kind Mean Hard Havens Information Burden Heavy Providing Secrecy Ambassadors Wikileaks Heavy Burdens

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Poor whites didn't have rights. They made all kind of restrictions on voting. So person meant relatively well - off, free white man.”

Men Wells Kind Persons Made White Poor Rights All Kinds Voting White Man Restriction

Author:Noam Chomsky

“So yes in theory there is a kind of a formal democracy and in many ways these were achievements and an improvement over the feudal system and more advanced than anything else in the world, but nothing that we ought to call democracy.”

World Way Kind Democracy Theory Ought Achievement Improvement Formal Feudal System

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Our whole educational and cultural system is not designed to provide those intellectual tools, so people are often lost and the internet often becomes kind of a cult generator.”

People Kind Whole Lost Internet Intellectual Tools Educational Cult Generator

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[Internet] is kind of like a hammer. The technology itself doesn't determine how its used. It depends on the social, cultural and economic context in which the technology is made available.”

Kind Made Used Social Technology Economic Depends Internet Determine Available Hammers

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I am thinking of actual cases of adolescents, lets say, who think they have five hundred friends, because there are five hundred people on their Facebook account. But these are the kind of friends whose relation to you is that if you say 'I bought a sandwich'; they say 'did it taste good?' You know, that's a kind of interaction, but very different to having a real friend, somebody who you can actually talk to.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Kind Different Real Cases Five Taste Hundred Accounts Relation Interaction Real Friends Sandwiches Kinds Of Friends

Author:Noam Chomsky

“They are involve in producing products and there are different kinds of people running them, but the principle is the same. A corporation shouldn't have the right. Under American law as its developed over the past century, corporation do have personal rights, but I think that's a very negative development.”

People Thinking Kind Different Running Past Law Principles Rights Century Products Development Negative Corporations Different Kinds Over The Past American Law Personal Rights

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Those are possibilities for technology, which don't tend to be used, because of the way power is concentrated. There are all kinds of possibilities, including for coercion. In China, technology is used to control and coerce. Here too, to an extent, but not to that extent.”

Way Kind Used Technology Possibility Including China All Kinds Coercion Coerce

Author:Noam Chomsky

“NAFTA and GATT are quite similar. They both have highly protectionist elements. They're kind of a mixture of liberalization and protection designed to expand the power of transnational corporations. They're very basically investor's rights agreements. One crucial part in both is the "intellectual property right," which is a funny way of saying that corporations, like pharmaceutical companies, will have near-monopolistic rule over future technology. This now includes product as well as process rights.”

“In the pre-capitalist world, everyone had a place. It might not have been a very nice place, even maybe a horrible place, but at least they had some place in the spectrum of the society and they had some kind of a right to live in the place. Now that's inconsistent with capitalism, which denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market.”

World Kind Has Beens Might Nice Capitalism Deny Horrible Labour Capitalist Spectrum Very Nice Inconsistent

Author:Noam Chomsky

“There is kind of a fundamental conformity, which is a virtual requirement to enter into the media.”

Kind Media Fundamentals Conformity Requirements

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I don't claim to know a lot about Mexico, but I did talk to quite a number of left Mexican intelectuals, and they all said the same thing. That there's a lot of popular, kind of, concern and activism, but it is very fragmented. That the groups have very specific, narrow agendas and they don't interact and cooperate with one another. Ok, that's something you have to overcome to build a mass popular movement. And that's, media can help, but they also benefit from it.”

Knows Kind Said Helping Left Numbers Groups Media Movement Benefits Mass Concern Overcoming Claims Activism Agendas Mexico Mexican Fragmented

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Unless that happens, unless you get, you know, kind of integration of activists' concerns and movements, it will be, each one will be 'preaching to the choir'.”

Knows Kind Happens Movement Concern Activist Preaching Integration Choir Preaching To The Choir

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The Andes region is not stable. So we can expect to see more US intervention. It could be under any kind of pretext. We can no longer use the Russians as an excuse, as we did in Central America in the 1980's, so drugs will have to do.”

Kind Use America Drug Excuse Regions Stable Intervention Pretext Central America

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Some kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both countries [Pakistan and India]. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces.”

Kind Country Force India Horrible Indian Regions Controlled Crucial Pakistan Atrocities Settlement Armed Forces Kashmir

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The Pashtuns in particular are kind of trapped. They've never accepted the Durand Line nor has any Afghan government historically accepted it.”

Kind Government Lines Particular Accepted Trapped Afghan Pashtuns

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The communists basically acted as the police force of the security system of the [Spain] Republic and were very much opposed to the anarchists, partially because [Joseph] Stalin still hoped at that time to have some kind of pact with Western countries against [Adolf] Hitler. That, of course, failed and Stalin withdrew the support to the Republic. They even withdrew the Spanish gold reserves.”

Kind Stills Country Courses Force Support Security Gold Police Western Republic Communist Reserves Spain Anarchist Pact Police Force Security Systems

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[Camillo] Berneri proposed that the anarchists should link up with the effort of Northern Africa to overthrow the Spanish government, carry out land reform, attract the base of the Moorish army, and see if they could undermine [Francisco] Franco's army through political warfare in Northern Africa combined with guerrilla warfare in Spain. Historians laughed at that, but I don't think they should have. This was the kind of war that might have succeeded in stopping Spanish fascism.”

“Bohemian Grove seems to be a kind of frat house affair. Bilderberg [philosophy] may be marginally more serious. The CFR is transparent. You can read their publications. In the 18th century it perhaps made some sense to conjure up the Illuminati and Masons. Not since.”

Kind May Made Philosophy Seems House Century Serious Affair Transparent Publication 18th Century Grove Masons Bohemian

Author:Noam Chomsky

“There are some very general ideas that people can keep in mind; they're kind of truisms. It's only worth mentioning them because they're always denied.”

People Mind Kind Ideas Denied Truism

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

“The community itself didn't support the union. Now that's kind of interesting about [Barack] Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I'm sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don't think he's forgotten, and the labor movement didn't react. Even radical labor historians didn't remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that's a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.”

“The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.”

“It's hard to achieve that, especially in a free society, but it's been done, and that's the kind of thing that activists in the IWW have to work against, right on the shop floor. It's not so simple, but it's been done before.”

Kind Hard Done Simple Achieve Shops Activist Free Society

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.”

“Language would have evolved first as an internal object, a kind of "language of thought" (LOT), with externalisation (hence communication) an ancillary process. I can't review here the strong and growing evidence to support this conclusion, but I have elsewhere. There are ample reasons why having a LOT would confer selectional advantage: the person so endowed could plan, interpret, reflect, etc., in ways denied to others.”

Way Firsts Kind Persons I Can Reason Language Strong Process Support Growing Plans Objects Communication Evidence Advantage Conclusion Reason Why Etc Internals Reviews Denied Elsewhere

Author:Noam Chomsky

“With regard to nuclear weapons, it's kind of hard to say. [Donald Trump] is said lots of things. The national security experts are terrified. But they're more terrified by his personality than by his statements.”

Kind Said Hard Security Personality Trump Weapons Regard Nuclear Statements Experts Nuclear Weapons Terrified National Security

Author:Noam Chomsky

“It's this kind of wild unpredictability, megalomania, thin-skinned craziness that really has me worried, more than [Donald Trump] statements. Now, on the climate change there's just nothing to say, he's perfectly straightforward.”

Kind Trump Climate Climate Change Statements Worried Straightforward Craziness Unpredictability Megalomania

Author:Noam Chomsky

“What the US does is the kind of thing I described in Italy in 1948. Case after case like that, not hacking or spreading rumors in the media; but saying look, we're going to starve you to death or kill you or destroy you unless you vote the way we want. I mean that's what we do.”

Way Want Looks Kind Mean Doe Cases Media Vote Rumor Hacking Spreading Rumors

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

“In the mid to late nineteenth century, the gun manufacturers recognized that they had a limited market. Remember that this is a capitalist society, you've got to expand your market. They were selling guns to the military. That's a pretty limited market. What about all the rest of the people? So what started was all kinds of fantastic stories about Wyatt Earp and the gunmen and the Wild West, how exciting it was to have these guys with guns defending themselves against all sorts of things.”

People Kind Stories Remember Guy Century Military Late Gun Exciting West Selling All Kinds Fantastic Capitalist Nineteenth Century Wild West Gunmen

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I think half the population supports this ban on these dangerous immigrants who are going to come in and do something, who knows what. And meanwhile the countries that really have been involved in terrorism, they're out. It's kind of like I think it was Oklahoma banning Sharia law.”

Thinking Knows Kind Has Beens Country Law Half Support Dangerous Involved Population Terrorism Immigrants Bans Oklahoma Sharia Sharia Law

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

“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

“We have to remember that literally within months after Castro's taking office the planes from Florida were beginning to bomb Cuba. Within a year, the Eisenhower administration secretly, but formally, decided to overthrow the government. Then came the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Kennedy administration was furious about the failure of the invasion and immediately launched a major terrorist war and economic war that got harsher through the years. Under these conditions it is kind of amazing that Cuba survived.”

“A lot of people who voted for Trump, working class people, voted for Obama in 2008. They were seduced by the slogans "hope" and "change." They didn't get hope, they didn't get change, they were disillusioned. This time they voted for another candidate who is calling for hope and change and has promised to deliver all kinds of amazing things.”

People Kind Class Trump Calling All Kinds Candidates Working Class Slogans Amazing Things Disillusioned Hope And Change

Author:Noam Chomsky

“This is a large part of the academic profession: to make up complex, subtle arguments that are childishly ridiculous but are enveloped in sufficient profundity that they take on a kind of plausibility.”

Kind Argument Complexes Profession Ridiculous Sufficient Subtle Academic Profundity

Author:Noam Chomsky

About the Author

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

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Books & Sources

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