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Noam Chomsky

410 quotes

“The United States government must cease interfering in Venezuela's internal politics, especially for the purpose of overthrowing the country's government. Actions by the Trump administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Venezuela's political polarization is not new; the country has long been divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. But the polarization has deepened in recent years. This is partly due to US support for an opposition strategy aimed at removing the government of Nicolás Maduro through extra-electoral means. While the opposition has been divided on this strategy, US support has backed hardline opposition sectors in their goal of ousting the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d'etat, or other avenues that sidestep the ballot box.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[...] after about 1960 there’s simply no serious question that the fate of Latin American dissidents was incomparably worse than that of those in the Eastern Bloc. Firstly, their treatment was far worse, but there’s another aspect: the Eastern Bloc dissidents – who were treated very harshly, and punished harshly – had the unique advantage of being celebrated and supported elsewhere; in fact, in the most powerful parts of the world. That’s not true of dissidents elsewhere; nobody supports the Latin American dissidents.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Latin American intellectuals sympathized with and supported Eastern Bloc dissidents, but Eastern Bloc dissidents mostly didn’t give a damn about their counterparts in US domain...”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[…] when Vaclav Havel comes [to the US Congress] and says “you’re the Defenders of Freedom” and of course gets enormous applause for it across the political spectrum, how are we supposed to react to that? This isn’t to imply that Havel wasn’t treated badly – of course he was – but he didn’t have his brains blown out. So yes, I expected exactly that reaction in Eastern Europe because they simply do not know. What they do “know” is that they were the only ones who suffered.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Third great threat] ...the deterioration of democracy.. the one hope we have for overcoming the crisis... informed, involved public taking control of their fate. If that doesn't happen we're doomed.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And back to the coronavirus, one of the most shocking harsh aspects of it, is the use of sanctions, to maximize the pain, perfectly consciously, Iran is in a zone, enormous internal problems by the stranglehold of tightening sanctions, which are consciously designed to make them suffer and suffer bitterly.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Crisis, the civilizational crisis of the West at this point is devastating... it does bring up childhood memories of listening to Hitler raving on the radio to raucous crowds... it makes you wonder if this species is even viable.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have a parrot. It can say 'sovereignty to all the people' in Portuguese.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky: Coronavirus - What is at stake? | Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) Mar 28, 2020
“There will be recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, at severe and possibly horrendous cost, particularly for the poor and more vulnerable. But there will be no recovery from the melting of the polar ice sheets and the other devastating consequences of global warming. Here, too, the catastrophe results from a market failure — in this case, of truly earth-shaking proportions.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The current administration had ample warning about a likely pandemic. In fact, a high-level simulation was run as recently as last October. Trump has reacted during his years in office in the manner to which we have become accustomed: by defunding and dismantling every relevant part of government and assiduously implementing the instructions of his corporate masters to eliminate the regulations that impede profits while saving lives — and leading the race to the abyss of , by far his greatest crime — in fact, the greatest crime in history when we consider the consequences.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The neoliberal version of capitalism has been in force since Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, beginning shortly before. There should be no need to detail its grim consequences. Reagan's generosity to the super-rich is of direct relevance today as another bailout is in progress. Reagan quickly lifted the ban on s and other devices to shift the tax burden to the public, and also authorized stock buybacks — a device to inflate s and enrich corporate management and the very wealthy (who own most of the stock) while undermining the of the enterprise.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let's assume Biden goes back to Obama’s policies. Contrary to what many Israelis think, Obama was the most pro-Israel president prior to Trump. He never imposed any demands on Israel. Israel's settlement freeze in 2010 under Obama was a complete farce. And everyone knows it. The Israeli press reported correctly that it had no effect. Instead of building new settlements, they called it expansion.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is hope for the Palestinians, but it doesn't lie with Biden, it lies with the public opinion in the U.S., which can't be suppressed forever. If you go back 20 years, the support for Israel would be among liberal democrats. Now it's shifting to evangelicals and ultranationalists. And support for Palestinians is growing among liberals – especially the young ones. Sooner or later that might influence policy.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In these tumultuous times, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion is important, because a functioning democracy requires active citizen participation in setting social policy.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For now, the critical task is to organize activist popular movements to change popular consciousness and understanding, to shape legislation, and to create facts on the ground: worker-owned industries, cooperatives, and other structures of democratic participation. We can learn a great deal from the long and hard struggles for social justice in past years, and we can and must move forward to build on their achievements and to surpass them. Given the urgency of the crises we face, there is no time to lose.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Covid-19 has revealed glaring failures and monstrous brutalities in the current capitalist system. It represents both a crisis and an opportunity. Contests for controlling the narratives around the meaning of this pandemic will be the terrain of struggle for either a new, more humane common sense and society or a return to the status quo ante. The outcome of those contests is uncertain; everything depends on the actions that people take into their hands.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: with Marv Waterstone, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance (2021), p. 344
“Critical race theory” is the scare-phrase used for the study of the systematic structural and cultural factors in the hideous 400-year history of slavery and enduring racist repression. Proper indoctrination in schools and universities must ban this heresy. What actually happened for 400 years and is very much alive today must be presented to students as a deviation from the real America, pure and innocent, much as in well-run totalitarian states.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We’ve been living through about 45 years of a particular socio-economic political system, what’s called neoliberalism... The so-called free trade agreements or radically protectionist that we’re seeing that right now in front of our eyes, we see virtual monopoly on drugs. What we’ve really had for the 45 years is what so many economists have called a bail out economy. So it’s one side of class war, markets for the poor, protection for the rich.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — it is taking its most lethal form in India.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "India has turned Muslims into a 'persecuted minority': Noam Chomsky", Dawn, February 12, 2022
“It is sometimes claimed that NATO membership increases security for Poland and others. A much stronger case can be made that NATO membership threatens their security by heightening tensions. Historian Richard Sakwa, a specialist on East Europe, observed that “NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a plausible judgment.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From "US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has 'Left the Domain of Rational Discourse'" Truthout (February 4, 2022)
“There are two ways for a war to end: One way is for one side or the other to be basically destroyed. And the Russians are not going to be destroyed. So that means one way is for Ukraine to be destroyed. The other way is some negotiated settlement. If there’s a third way, no one’s ever figured it out.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky and Jeremy Scahill on the Russia-Ukraine War, the Media, Propaganda, and Accountability The Intercept (April 14, 2022).
“Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was clearly provoked while the U.S. invasion of Iraq was clearly unprovoked. That is exactly the opposite of standard commentary and reporting. But it is also exactly the norm of wartime propaganda, not just in the U.S., though it is more instructive to observe the process in free societies. Many feel that it is wrong to bring up such matters, even a form of pro-Putin propaganda: we should, rather, focus laser-like on Russia’s ongoing crimes. Contrary to their beliefs, that stand does not help Ukrainians. It harms them.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, "Noam Chomsky: Propaganda Wars Are Raging as Russia’s War on Ukraine Expands", Truthout, 28 April, 2022
“[When asked if “Ukrainians have the right to fight to death before surrendering any territory to Russia"?] To my knowledge, no one has suggested that Ukrainians don’t have that right. Islamic Jihad also has the abstract right to fight to the death before surrendering any territory to Israel. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s their right.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, "Chomsky: US Is Prioritizing Its Jockeying With Russia, Not Ukrainians’ Lives", Truthout.org, May 4, 2022
“Well in the Western propaganda system, what we hear is Ukrainian people want more and more arms. That's the U.S. and British propaganda system. If we look at what’s happening, Zelensky, who’s as much of a voice of the Ukrainian people as we have any idea about, has repeatedly, repeatedly called for a political settlement... That’s what you don’t hear in the U.S.-British propaganda system.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Owen Jones, "Noam Chomsky on Ukraine and nuclear armageddon", (May 11, 2022)
“I have never once “rationalized” the invasion [of Ukraine] or hinted at any such thing. In fact, I’ve condemned it... and I’ve emphasize[d] the truism -- repeat TRUISM -- that presenting background is not justification.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky, “The Ukraine War: Chomsky Responds”, Counterpunch, June 3, 2022.
“The United States Department [sic] acknowledged that they had not taken Russian security concerns into consideration in any discussions with Russia. The question of NATO, they would not discuss. Well, all of that is provocation. Not a justification, but a provocation. And it's quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the 'unprovoked invasion of Ukraine'. Look it up on Google. You will find hundreds of thousands of hits. Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn't refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By now, censorship in the United States has reached such a level beyond anything in my lifetime. Such a level that you are not permitted to read the Russian position. Literally. Americans are not allowed to know what the Russians are saying. Except, selected things. So, if Putin makes a speech to Russians with all kinds of outlandish claims about Peter the Great and so on, then, you see it on the front pages. If the Russians make an offer for a negotiation, you can't find it. That's suppressed. You're not allowed to know what they are saying. I have never seen a level of censorship like this.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Ramzy Baroud, "‘Rationality Is Not Permitted’: Chomsky On Russia, Ukraine And The Price Of Media Censorship – OpEd, Eurasia Review, (June 27, 2022).
“Well, who's to blame? Any power that commits aggression is to blame. So I continue to say, as I have been for many months, that the invasion, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is on a par with such acts of aggression as the US invasion of Iraq, the Stalin-Hitler invasion of Poland, other acts of supreme international crime... under international law, correction. Of course he's to blame.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no indication that China is planning to invade Taiwan. If the United States increases the escalation, they might do it.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The US is now trying to enlist Europe in its confrontation with China by expanding NATO.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You put nuclear-capable B-52s in flying distance to China with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, that’s provocation.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“China, remember, is faced with security problems at every border. The United States is faced with no security problems.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we talk about [Chinese] economic imperialism, exactly what are we referring to? We’re referring to investment in development programs throughout Eurasia, spanning to Africa, spanning even to Latin America.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“China is by no means saintly. Plenty of criticisms you can make of China. But I would like to describe the world situation as it is, not as it’s presented by US-British propaganda.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Censorship and its Aftermath" (June 1990)
Also quoted by: Nadine Gordimer
“Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suppose that we manage to construct grammars having the properties outlined above. We can then attempt to describe and study the achievement of the speaker, listener, and learner. The speaker and the listener, we must assume, have already acquired the capacities characterized abstractly by the grammar. The speaker’s task is to select a particular compatible set of optional rules. If we know, from grammatical study, what choices are available to him and what conditions of compatibility the choices must meet, we can proceed meaningfully to investigate the factors that lead him to make one or another choice. The listener (or reader) must determine, from an exhibited utterance, what optional rules were chosen in the construction of the utterance. It must be admitted that the ability of a human being to do this far surpasses our present understanding. The child who learns a language has in some sense constructed the grammar for himself on the basis of his observation of sentences and nonsentences (i.e., corrections by the verbal community). Study of the actual observed ability of a speaker to distinguish sentences from nonsentences, detect ambiguities, etc., apparently forces us to the conclusion that this grammar is of an extremely complex and abstract character, and that the young child has succeeded in carrying out what from the formal point of view, at least, seems to be a remarkable type of theory construction. Furthermore, this task is accomplished in an astonishingly short time, to a large extent independently of intelligence, and in a comparable way by all children. Any theory of learning must cope with these facts.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, Language 35, no. 1 (January–March 1959)
“The search for rigorous formulation in linguistics has a much more serious motivation than mere concern for logical niceties or the desire to purify well-established methods of linguistic analysis. Precisely constructed models for linguistic structure can play an important role, both negative and positive, in the process of discovery itself. By pushing a precise but inadequate formulation to an unacceptable conclusion, we can often expose the exact source of this inadequacy and, consequently, gain a deeper understanding of the linguistic data. More positively, a formalized theory may automatically provide solutions for many problems other than those for which it was explicitly designed. Obscure and intuition-bound notions can neither lead to absurd conclusions nor provide new and correct ones, and hence they fail to be useful in two important respects. I think that some of those linguists who have questioned the value of precise and technical development of linguistic theory may have failed to recognize the productive potential in the method of rigorously stating a proposed theory and applying it strictly to linguistic material with no attempt to avoid unacceptable conclusions by ad hoc adjustments or loose formulation.”
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“The grammar of a language is a complex system with many and varied interconnections between its parts. In order to develop one part of grammar thoroughly, it is often useful, or even necessary, to have some picture of the character of a completed system. Once again, I think that the notion that syntactic theory must await the solution of problems of phonology and morphology is completely untenable whether or not one is concerned with the problem of discovery procedures, but I think it has been nurtured by a faulty analogy between the order of development of linguistic theory and the presumed order of operations in discovery of grammatical structure.”
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“I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility. One can easily concoct imaginary situations in which it would be inadvisable, even immoral to do so [...] [I will not defend] the assumption that it is reprehensible for a powerful nation to invade a weak and tiny neighbor in order to impose on it an "acceptable" government [...] just as I would not take the trouble to justify my belief that one should assist a child being attacked by a rabid dog.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Arthur Dorfman, reply by Noam Chomsky, New York Review of Books, April 20, 1967.
“I'm of course opposed to terror, any rational person is, but I think that if we're serious about the question of terror and serious about the question of violence we have to recognize that it is a tactical and hence moral matter. Incidentally, tactical issues are basically moral issues. They have to do with human consequences. And if we're interested in, let's say, diminishing the amount of violence in the world, it's at least arguable and sometimes true that a terroristic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world. Hence a person who is opposed to violence will not be opposed to that terroristic act.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky interviewed by William F. Buckley in the TV talk show Firing Line, April 3, 1969. Quoted in: Does anyone know the context of the following Noam Chomsky quote about violence? at eduqna.com, 2006-12.
“After the first International Days of Protest in October, 1965, Senator Mansfield criticized the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by the demonstrators. He had nothing to say then, nor has he since, about the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by Senator Mansfield and others who stand by quietly and vote appropriations as the cities and villages of North Vietnam are demolished, as millions of refugees in the South are driven from their homes by American bombardment. He has nothing to say about the moral standards or the respect for international law of those who have permitted this tragedy. I speak of Senator Mansfield precisely because he is not a breast-beating superpatriot who wants America to rule the world, but is rather an American intellectual in the best sense, a scholarly and reasonable man -- the kind of man who is the terror of our age. Perhaps this is merely a personal reaction, but when I look at what is happening to our country, what I find most terrifying is not Curtis LeMay, with his cheerful suggestion that we bomb everybody back into the stone age, but rather the calm disquisitions of the political scientists on just how much force will be necessary to achieve our ends, or just what form of government will be acceptable to us in Vietnam. What I find terrifying is the detachment and equanimity with which we view and discuss an unbearable tragedy. 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 (born 1928) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Resistance", The New York Review of Books, December 7, 1967.
“Twenty years ago, Dwight Macdonald published a series of articles in Politics on the responsibility of peoples and, specifically, the responsibility of intellectuals. I read them as an undergraduate, in the years just after the war, and had occasion to read them again a few months ago. They seem to me to have lost none of their power or persuasiveness. Macdonald is concerned with the question of war guilt . He asks the question: To what extent were the German or Japanese people responsible for the atrocities committed by their governments? And, quite properly, he turns the question back to us: To what extent are the British or American people responsible for the vicious terror bombings of civilians, perfected as a technique of warfare by the Western democracies and reaching their culmination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, surely among the most unspeakable crimes in history.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky, The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967)
“With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the "responsibility of people," given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noam Chomsky, The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967)
“Within modern linguistics, it is chiefly within the last few years that fairly substantial attempts have been made to construct explicit generative grammars for particular languages and to explore their consequences. No great surprise should be occasioned by the extensive discussion and debate concerning the proper formulation of the theory of generative grammar and the correct description of the languages that have been most intensively studied. The tentative character of any conclusions that can now be advanced concerning linguistic theory, or, for that matter, English grammar, should certainly be obvious to anyone working in this area. (It is sufficient to consider the vast range of linguistic phenomena that have resisted insightful formulation in any terms.) Still, it seems that certain fairly substantial conclusions are emerging and receiving continually increased support. In particular, the central role of grammatical transformations in any empirically adequate generative grammar seems to me to be established quite firmly, though there remain many questions as to the proper form of the theory of transformational grammar.”
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“In brief, it is clear that no present-day theory of language can hope to attain explanatory adequacy beyond very restricted domains. In other words, we are very far from being able to present a system of formal and substantive linguistic universals that will be sufficiently rich and detailed to account for the facts of language learning. To advance linguistic theory in the direction of explanatory adequacy, we can attempt to refine the evaluation measure for grammars or to tighten the formal constraints on grammars so that it becomes more difficult to find a highly valued hypothesis compatible with primary linguistic data.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In short, the structure of particular languages may very well be largely determined by factors over which the individual has no conscious control and concerning which society may have little choice or freedom. On the basis of the best information now available, it seems reasonable to suppose that a child cannot help constructing a particular sort of transformational grammar to account for the data presented to him, any more than he can control his perception of solid objects or his attention to line and angle. Thus it may well be that the general features of language structure reflect, not so much the course of one’s experience, but rather the general character of one’s capacity to acquire knowledge — in the traditional sense, one’s innate ideas and innate principles.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Returning to the main theme, we can apparently define a grammatical transformation in terms of a “structure index” that is a Boolean condition on Analyzability and a sequence of elementary transformations drawn from a base set including substitutions, deletions, and adjunctions. It seems also that these form larger repeated units (for example, substitution-deletions, erasures) and that the limitations on their application can be given by general conventions of the sort just mentioned. If this is correct, then the formal properties of the theory of transformations become fairly clear and reasonably simple, and it may be possible to undertake abstract study of them of a sort that has not been feasible in the past.”
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