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Noam Chomsky Quotes (1928-)
Philosopher, Actor, Activist
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About Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born 7 December 1928) is an American linguist, analytical philosopher, cognitive scientist, political analyst, human rights activist and anarcho-socialist.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Noam Chomsky quotes.
“Intrinsic (psychological) structure is rich . . . and diverse.”
“The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime. Straight-out war crime.”
“If I was in the mainstream, I'd began to ask myself what I'm doing wrong.”
“I have a parrot. It can say 'sovereignty to all the people' in Portuguese.”
“"Tough love" is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else.”
“The US is now trying to enlist Europe in its confrontation with China by expanding NATO.”
“The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.”
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — it is taking its most lethal form in India.”
“If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
“The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire, [...]”
“Spectator sports make people more passive, because you're not doing them—you're watching somebody doing them.”
“You put nuclear-capable B-52s in flying distance to China with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, that’s provocation.”
“Modern linguistics has also failed to deal with the Cartesian observations regarding human language in any serious way.”
“There is no indication that China is planning to invade Taiwan. If the United States increases the escalation, they might do it.”
“I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.”
“The deep structure that expresses the meaning is common to all languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of the forms of thought.”
In a 1983 letter, Noam Chomsky argues that a state's capacity for violence is directly linked to its ability to serve powerful domestic interests.
“Roughly speaking, states are violent to the extent that they have the power to act in the interests of those with domestic power...”
Noam Chomsky Quotes by Topic
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Noam Chomsky on History 14 quotes
“There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much.”
Noam Chomsky on United States 7 quotes
“I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.”
Noam Chomsky on Propaganda 5 quotes
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
Noam Chomsky on China 5 quotes
“We all know that if Russia or China were guilty of what we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes.”
- Noam Chomsky, C)
Noam Chomsky on Neoliberalism 5 quotes
“And it’s gone on for the United States. We have measures of it. I’m sure you know that the Rand Corporation about a year ago came out with an estimate that about $50 trillion – That’s not pennies – $50 trillion had been transferred to the pockets of the top 1%, or to a fraction of them, mostly in the last 40 years of class war. Meanwhile, real wages have stagnated, and for mail workers, benefits have collapsed.”
Noam Chomsky on COVID-19 pandemic 4 quotes
“There will be recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, at severe and possibly horrendous cost, particularly for the poor and more vulnerable.”
Noam Chomsky on Internationalism 4 quotes
“Cuba has probably been the target of more international terrorism than the rest of the world combined and, therefore, in the American ideological system it is regarded as the source of international terrorism, exactly as Orwell would have predicted.”
Noam Chomsky on COVID-19 pandemic in the United States 4 quotes
“Trump was not silent, however. He issued a stream of confident pronouncements informing the public that it was just a cough; he has everything under control; he gets a 10 out of 10 for his handling of the crisis; it’s very serious but he knew it was a pandemic before anyone else; and the rest of the sorry performance. The technique is well-designed, much like the practice of reeling out lies so fast that the very concept of truth vanishes. Whatever happens, Trump is sure to be vindicated among his loyal followers. When you shoot arrows at random, some are likely to hit the target.”
Noam Chomsky on Intellectual 3 quotes
“The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.”
Noam Chomsky on Freedom of speech 3 quotes
“Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.”
- Noam Chomsky, 1900s)
Noam Chomsky on Manager 3 quotes
“[I]n the humanities and social sciences, and in fields like journalism and economics and so on … people have to be trained to be managers, and controllers, and to accept things, and not to question too much.”
- Noam Chomsky, C)
Noam Chomsky on Freedom 3 quotes
“Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns.”
What Noam Chomsky Said About Others
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Noam Chomsky on Donald Trump 3 quotes
Amidst accusations of Russian collusion, C defends President Trump's desire for improved US-Russia relations, deeming the resulting criticism "outlandish."
“[President Trump] is perfectly right when he says we should have better relations with Russia. Being dragged through the mud for that is outlandish...”
Noam Chomsky on Bernie Sanders 3 quotes
“Sanders ... has mobilized a large number of young people, these young people who are saying, "Look, we're not going to consent anymore." And if that turns into a continuing, organized, mobilized force, that could change the country.”
Noam Chomsky on Edward S. Herman 3 quotes
“[Herman produced] scrupulous, diligent and comprehensive research; a keen instinct for detecting and exposing hypocrisy and deceit and the effects of conformity to doctrine; and a recognition of the role of institutional structures in shaping interpretation and analysis.”
Noam Chomsky on Vladimir Lenin 2 quotes
“Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded...by the mainstream Marxists. ... Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.”
Noam Chomsky on George W. Bush 2 quotes
“We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.”
Noam Chomsky on Thomas Friedman 2 quotes
“One might ask what the reaction would be if a prominent journalist urged South Africans to "give Sambo a seat in the bus," or proposed that Jews be granted something to lose, because "if you give Hymie a seat in the bus, he may limit his demands." Promotion to chief diplomatic correspondent, perhaps?”
Noam Chomsky on John F. Kennedy
“Kennedy was at the hawkish end of the administration.”
Noam Chomsky on Joe Biden
“Biden’s an empty vessel. I don’t think he has any firm principles.”
Noam Chomsky on Jeane Kirkpatrick
“Jean Kirkpatrick [is] the chief sadist-in-residence of the Reagan Administration”
Noam Chomsky on Fred Hampton
“The execution of Fred Hampton was the gravest domestic crime of the Nixon administration.”
Noam Chomsky on Bashar al-Assad
“The Assad regime is absolutely monstrous and responsible for a large majority of the atrocities.”
Quotes About Noam Chomsky
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Noam Chomsky from others.
Raziel Abelson on Noam Chomsky
Raziel Abelson lauds Noam Chomsky's bold and impassioned anti-Vietnam War stance, praising his willingness to risk his career and reputation to challenge government actions.
“Chomsky's morally impassioned and powerfully argued denunciation of American aggression in Vietnam and throughout the world is the most moving political document I have read since the death of Leon Trotsky. It is inspiring to see a brilliant scientist risk his prestige, his access to lucrative government grants, and his reputation for Olympian objectivity by taking a clearcut, no-holds-barred, adversary position on the burning moral-political issue of the day, and by castigating the complacent mythology of "specialized expertise" under which many academic intellectuals shrug off the crimes committed by their government, only provided they are not naked enough (e.g., the Dominican intervention) to defy the most accomplished casuistry.”
Hannah Arendt on Noam Chomsky
“Noam Chomsky's pessimism, "neither history nor psychology nor sociology gives us any particular reason to look forward with hope to the rule of the new mandarins," may be excessive; there are as yet no historical precedents, and the scientists and intellectuals who, with such deplorable regularity, have been found willing to serve every government that happened to be in power, have been no "meritocrats" but, rather, social climbers. But Chomsky is entirely right in raising the question: "Quite generally, what grounds are there for supposing that those whose claim to power is based on knowledge and technique will be more benign in their exercise of power than those whose claim is based on wealth or aristocratic origin?" (Op. cit., p. 27.)”
Robert Barsky on Noam Chomsky
“Unlike many leftists of his generation, Chomsky never flirted with movements or organizations that were later revealed to be totalitarian, oppressive, exclusionary, antirevolutionary, or elitist. Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism offered to many of Chomsky's disillusioned contemporaries an alternative to what they saw as blatantly exclusionary American-style capitalism. When reports about what had actually occurred in the former Soviet Union and China began to filter through, many felt betrayed. We now hear a lot about how the left has been discredited, the hopelessness of utopian thinking, the futility of activist struggle, but little about the libertarian options that Chomsky and others have so consistently presented. The type of dismay that has permeated contemporary intellectual circles has not touched Chomsky. He has very little to regret. His work, in fact, contains some of the most accurate analyses of this century. And yet, most of his criticisms of American policy, past and present, are seldom mentioned in the mainstream press or by the instructors and professors who teach history or politics. Political science departments rarely use his material on Vietnam, the Cold War, Central America, or Israel.”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Noam Chomsky
“We spent many nights in the basement that contained the Ole Mole machinery, getting the paper out and hanging out in Noam Chomsky's MIT office, talking for hours. Noam was only forty years old then, but seemed a wise sage with vast knowledge beyond his academic field of linguistics. He provided concrete historical examples of how we might organize for a new society-the Spanish anarchist collectives of the 1930s and the Jewish kibbutz movement in Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel.”
Yuriy Gorodnichenko on Noam Chomsky 2 quotes
“[…] Whether willingly or unwillingly, [Chomsky’s] interviews insinuate that Ukrainians are fighting with Russians because the US instigated them to do so, that Euromaidan happened because the US tried to detach Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence, etc. Such an attitude denies the agency of Ukraine and is a slap in the face to millions of Ukrainians who are risking their lives for the desire to live in a free country. Simply put, have you [Chomsky] considered the possibility that Ukrainians would like to detach from the Russian sphere of influence due to a history of genocide, cultural oppression, and constant denial of the right to self-determination?”
Sam Harris on Noam Chomsky
“Chomsky might object that to knowingly place the life of a child in jeopardy is unacceptable in any case, but clearly this is not a principle we can follow. The makers of roller coasters know, for instance, that despite rigorous safety precautions, sometime, somewhere, a child will be killed by one of their contraptions. Makers of automobiles know this as well. So do makers of hockey sticks, baseball bats, plastic bags, swimming pools, chain-link fences, or nearly anything else that could conceivably contribute to the death of a child. There is a reason we do not refer to the inevitable deaths of children on our ski slopes as "skiing atrocities." But you would not know this from reading Chomsky. For him, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all.”
Chris Hedges on Noam Chomsky 2 quotes
“Noam Chomsky is America's greatest intellectual. His massive body of work, which includes nearly 100 books, has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite and the myths they perpetrate. Chomsky has done this despite being blacklisted by the commercial media, turned into a pariah by the academy and, by his own admission, being a pedantic and at times slightly boring speaker. He combines moral autonomy with rigorous scholarship, a remarkable grasp of detail and a searing intellect.”
Edward S. Herman on Noam Chomsky
Edward S. Herman highlights the intense scrutiny Noam Chomsky faced for his controversial views, particularly during a period of heightened political tensions.
“[Chomsky's work was] subjected to an ongoing and intense scrutiny for any literal errors or bases of vulnerability, a scrutiny from which establishment experts are entirely free. This search was perhaps more intense in the United States and among its allies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with a growing body of hard-liners anxious to overcome the Vietnam syndrome, revitalize the arms race, strengthen support for Israel's rejectionism and policy of force and involve the United States in more aggressive actions towards the Soviet bloc and Third World. [...] The Cambodia and Faurisson disputes imposed a serious personal cost on Chomsky. He put up a diligent defence against the attacks and charges against him, answering virtually every letter and written criticism that came to his attention. He wrote many hundreds of letters to correspondents and editors on these topics, along with numerous articles, and answered many phone enquiries and queries in interviews. The intellectual and moral drain was severe. It is an astonishing fact, however, that he was able to weather these storms with his energies, morale, sense of humour and vigour and integrity of his political writings virtually intact.”
Christopher Hitchens on Noam Chomsky 3 quotes
“Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations— he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.”
Source on Noam Chomsky 6 quotes
“It is untrue that Chomsky’s support for Johnstone was limited to her “right to free speech”. An open letter signed by Chomsky describes Johnstone’s book in the following terms: “We regard Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade as an outstanding work, dissenting from the mainstream view but doing so by an appeal to fact and reason, in a great tradition.” In his own open letter on Johnstone’s book, to which he refers in his letter to the Guardian of November 2, Chomsky states: “I have known her for many years, have read the book, and feel that it is quite serious and important… Johnstone argues – and, in fact, clearly demonstrates – that a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication.” Conversely, nowhere does Chomsky express the slightest disagreement with anything that Johnstone’s book says (except perhaps in the Brockes interview, which he has repudiated). This goes beyond support for Johnstone’s right to free speech, and amounts to an endorsement of her arguments.”
Marko Attila Hoare on Noam Chomsky
“It is untrue that Chomsky has been as unambiguous in his recognition of the Srebrenica massacre as he now claims. Since the appearance of Johnstone’s book in 2002, Chomsky has spoken of Serb forces as having “apparently slaughtered” Muslims in Srebrenica and of the thousands of dead as mere “estimates”; has described the killings as Serb “retaliation” for alleged Muslim crimes against Serbs; and has compared Serb behaviour at Srebrenica favourably with US behaviour in Iraq. In the very same open letter to which he refers in his letter to the Guardian, he described the crime of Srebrenica as “much lesser” than Indonesian crimes in East Timor in 1999, even though he estimates the latter as involving only 5,000 to 6,000 civilian casualties….”
Norman N. Holland on Noam Chomsky
“I do not mean to suggest that linguists have all adopted Chomsky's views. They are still controversial, and he would be the first to acknowledge that they are subject to revision in the light of further evidence. Linguists who reject Chomsky's ideas, however, are trying to offer alternatives or to go beyond Chomsky. They are not turning back to Saussure. My point is not that Chomsky is right but that Saussure and Lacan are wrong.”
About Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born 7 December 1928) is an American linguist, analytical philosopher, cognitive scientist, political analyst, human rights activist and anarcho-socialist.