1,450 Quotes by Noam Chomsky

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

Unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

On humanitarian intervention in general, I guess my view is not unlike the view that was attributed to Gandhi, accurately or not when he was supposedly asked what he thought about western civilization. He is supposed to have said that he thought it would be a good idea. Similarly, humanitarian intervention would be a good idea, in principle.

It's true that many say that they object to the idea of 'human nature,' but it's not clear what that is supposed to mean. Are we different from ants?

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.

Democracy, in any rational form, also imposes conditions on majority rule. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, for example.

There are all the activist groups on every imaginable topic - solidarity groups, environmental and feminist groups - sectors of these movements do very valuable work.

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.

In the moral calculus of currently prevailing state capitalism, profits and bonuses in the next quarter greatly outweigh concern for the welfare of one's grandchildren, and since these are institutional maladies, they will not be easy to overcome. While much remains uncertain, we can assure ourselves, with fair confidence, that future generations will not forgive us our silence and apathy.