Noam Chomsky

An IMF study that investigated the profits of American banks…found that they were almost entirely dependent on implicit public subsidies. There’s a kind of a guarantee – it’s not on paper, but it’s an implicit guarantee – that if they get into trouble they will be bailed out.

The first [task of the Pentagon] is to preserve an international system in which what are called American interests – which primarily means business interests, can flourish.

The rascal multitude are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions.

The description of what the Europeans did is just monstrous. The British and Dutch merchants — actually merchant warriors — moved into Asia and broke into trading areas that had been functioning for long, long periods, with pretty well-established rules.

These are fashionable people who call themselves philosophers.

Now if you can’t pay back a loan to me, I don’t say that your neighbors have to pay it back. But that’s what the IMF says. The IMF says the people of the country have to pay back the debt which they had nothing to do with, it was usually given to dictators, or rich elites…

I cannot forgive him [Nelson Mandela] for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize with his jailer De Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think De Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed.

Europeans are dying out. Don’t you understand that? And same-sex marriages don’t produce children. Do you want to survive by drawing migrants? But society cannot adapt so many migrants.

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.

The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the minimum wage-which sets a floor for other wages-tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15.

It is necessary to suppress any extremist actions, on all sides, regardless of their origin.

I have a great relationship with the Mexican people.

The growing economic potential of India and Russia is mutually complementary in many respects.

When the States already had nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels.

I do not feel that we should set up people as ‘models’; rather actions, thoughts, principles.

We can realise a lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship to one of enduring co-operation.

I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country.

I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.

Our military might is the guarantor of Russia’s security and independence.

What happened to the confidence and ideals of the European dream? The EU was set up to protect freedom. It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving.

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.