Noam Chomsky

A very small proportion of declassified documents have anything to do with security, no matter how broadly you interpret it. They primarily have to do with ensuring that the major enemy, namely, the domestic population, does not find out what power systems are doing.

One positive development might be the infrastructure program that Trump has promised while (along with much reporting and commentary) concealing the fact that it is essentially the Obama stimulus program that would have been of great benefit to the economy and to the society generally, but was killed by the Republican Congress on the pretext that it would explode the deficit..

I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.

It is a waste of time and a pointless pursuit to speak truth to Henry Kissinger, or the CEO of General Motors, or others who exercise power in coercive institutions — truths that they already know well enough, for the most part.

Both prisons and inner-city schools target a kind of superfluous population that there’s no point educating because there’s nothing for them to do. Because we’re a civilized people, we put them in prison, rather than sending death squads out to murder them.

Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry?

But I was amazed at how organized the Palestinian election authority was, how competent they were in setting up their polling places and the poll workers they had.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

Look at those hands, are they small hands? And, [Republican rival Marco Rubio] referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.

[The general population – “the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”] are allowed to vote every once in a while, pick out one of us smart guys. But then they are supposed to go home and do something else like watch football or whatever it may be.

[on Donald Trump] seems determined to add to the dangers [in the global situation] by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran and backing a new nuclear arms race.

If you look at the American army’s counterinsurgency literature…it begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe, written with the cooperation of Nazi officers…which techniques for controlling resistance worked, which ones didn’t.

The more intermediaries there are, the more problems there are.

Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.

You cannot reform your society or institution without opening your mind.

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

There are still independent newspapers and magazines, they do exist. But as for television, the situation is not as good. It’s one of the main problems. I would say, as regards the development of democracy, of democracy laying down roots – that is something that Russia still needs to address.

The Revolution… was the result of a mature and reflecting preference for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.

But we’re at a place in our political history when passing legislation through the House with bipartisan support is considered by some folks a greater evil than the problem it’s intended to solve.

You cannot be President of the United States if you don’t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff.

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.