1,450 Quotes by Noam Chomsky

The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can’t be intimidated. Europe you can intimidate. When the US tries to get people to stop investing in Iran, European companies pull out, China disregards it. You look at history and understand why: China has been around for 4,000 years and just doesn’t give a damn. You can’t intimidate them — it’s driving people in Washington berserk. Yet of all the major powers, China has been the least aggressive militarily.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors [...] I don't usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this 'hopey changey' stuff, she was right, there was nothing there. And it was understood by the people who run the political system, and so it's no great secret that the US electoral system is mainly a public relations extravaganza...it's sort of a marketing affair.

Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice.

Another problem with the official definitions of terror is that it follows from them that the US is a leading terrorist state.

The more you learn, the more you realize the less you know. You think you’re approaching some kind of horizon, but in fact the horizon is receding, and the more you learn, the more you see that horizon is very far away

The more you learn, the more you realize the less you know. You think you’re approaching some kind of horizon, but in fact the horizon is receding, and the more you learn, the more you see that horizon is very far away. Life would be pretty boring if we understood everything so better that we don't understand everything

In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is concern for content.

People are called intellectuals because they're privileged. It's not because they're smart or they know a lot. There are plenty of people who know more and are smarter but aren't intellectuals because they don't have the privilege. The people called intellectuals are privileged. They have resources and opportunities, and enough freedom has been won so that they state does not have an unrestrained capacity to repress

The meaning of life is something we answer with our own activities, there’s no general answer--we determine what the meaning of it is. Meaning in the sense of significance, not in the sense of 'chair means this', but the significance of your life, is something you create