Noam Chomsky Quotes & Sayings

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

“There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.”

“Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.”

“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”

“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.”

“With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.”

“Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.”

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”

“There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.”