Noam Chomsky

There’s an array of terms of abuse [in the U.S.], like “Marxist,” but it doesn’t matter really, it’s a very free society. So if you’re vilified by some commissars, who cares, you go on-you do your work anyway.

Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile.

Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence offered a certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons, it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western attack. Those options are gone, and the South is suffering the consequences.

The House Armed Services Committee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance.

Nothing is sincere….But…[liberals] should be praising [Trump] for [reducing tensions with Russia and sensible Korean denuclearization] and supporting it, but instead, the liberals are so insane that they’re attacking him for the few things he’s doing which makes sense.

Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs that may be severe, even in a society that lacks such means of control as death squads, psychiatric prisons, or extermination camps.

We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue.

He told me was seeking contributions to the Jimmy Carter Library. I asked how much he had in mind. And he said, Donald, I would be very appreciative if you contributed five million dollars.I was dumbfounded. I didn’t even answer him.But that experience also taught me something.Until then, I’d never understood how Jimmy Carter became president. The answer is that as poorly qualified he was for the job, Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls, to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected president.

We can win an awful lot of people into the political spectrum, by offering something that is … radical.

I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

As yet we do not plan to withdraw these forces. But I direct your attention to the fact that I did not call these bases by any other name – I called them bases. We are not building long-term military structures there and if we need to, we could withdraw our military personnel very quickly, without incurring any financial losses.

Some of the slave-owners, like Jefferson, appreciated the moral turpitude on which the economy relied. But he feared the liberation of slaves, who have ‘ten thousand recollections’ of the crimes to which they were subjected.

Debates, I hate.

My life’s work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

[on Jeremy Cobyn] It is a different type of Labour Party. Can it be taken back? I don’t know

You’re having a lot of fun, right? Suppose Hillary got elected instead of Trump, you think it would be so exciting?

Politics in the true sense, have to do with the prosperity, peace and security of the people.

It’s not that the US is trying to increase the use of drugs, it’s just the natural thing to do. If you were in a position where you had to hire thugs and gangsters to kill peasants and break strikes, and you had to do it with untraceable money, what would come to your mind?

If governments would only understand that if people are left alone they’ll work out their own salvation.

President Hoover has done everything any one could do to bring about improvement in business and industry. Everything President Hoover has advised or tried to put into effect has been sound.

When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: Why do I care if my high school’s team wins the football game? I don’t know anybody on the team, they have nothing to do with me… why am I here and applaud? It does not make any sense. But the point is, it does make sense: It’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it’s training in irrational jingoism. That’s also a feature of competitive sports.