Noam Chomsky

The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious stories and mute criticism in order not to offend their sources and disturb a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers.

If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you’re saying, because it’s too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you’ve resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, ‘You’re an asshole,’ which maybe he or she is, and if you don’t say, ‘That’s idiotic,’ when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.

The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

The U.S. will not permit constructive programs in its own domains, so it must ensure that they are destroyed elsewhere to terminate ‘the threat of a good example’.

It’s not going to be easy to proceed. There are going to be barriers, difficulties, hardships, failures- it’s inevitable. But unless the process that is taking place here and elsewhere in the country and around the world, unless that continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high.

…if you want to be praised and have your books reviewed and told how brilliant you are and get great jobs, it’s not advisable to be a dissident. It’s not impossible, and in fact the system has enough looseness in it so that it can be done, but it is not easy.

The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.

Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.

We are no longer a leader. Putin has become the leader, and it’s an embarassment to our country.

The worst thing for a politician is to try and cling to power by every possible means, and focus only on that.

I will not allow the selfless efforts of my husband and his friends to be abandoned. I will continue the struggle for a free and equal South Africa.

If people don’t like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.

There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.

[on Michelle Obama] She’s something of a force of nature – one of the rare few who are truly present with whomever she’s talking to. Whether it’s a veteran, a child, a working mother, or movie star, she treats everyone the same, with respect and full attention.

[After Communism succeeds] …then, there will come a peace across the earth.

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.

Under my administration anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country and back to the country from which they came.

I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them a chance, in the media, in politics, in democracy.

Anarcho-syndicalism took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, that they ought to control the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations…

It is time to show the whole world that America is back – bigger and better and stronger than ever before.