1,450 Quotes by Noam Chomsky

In 1961, the United States began chemical warfare in Vietnam, South Vietnam, chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock. That went on for seven years. The level of poison – they used the most extreme carcinogen known: dioxin. And this went on for years.

It is quite possible – overwhelmingly probable, one might guess – that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.

We’re supposed to worship Adam Smith but you’re not supposed to read him. That’s too dangerous.

Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.

The imperialist ideology, you say, can readily tolerate a quite large number of contradictions, infractions, and criticisms – all these remain acceptable, except one: to reveal the economic motives.

It’s a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.

The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world’s energy.

In the West, you don’t get in any trouble if you tell the truth, but you still can’t do it. Not only can’t you tell the truth, you can’t think the truth. It’s just so deeply embedded, deeply instilled, that without any meaningful coercion it comes out the same way it does in a totalitarian state.