Noam Chomsky Quotes on Politics

Quotes

• “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

  The Common Good

• “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”

  Noam Chomsky in interview by John Pilger on The Late Show BBC Television, November 25, 1992 .

• “Chap. 8 : The Explanatory Power of Linguistic Theory”

  There are many facts about language and linguistic behavior that require explanation beyond the fact that such and such a string (which no one may ever have produced) is or is not a sentence. It is reasonable to expect grammars to provide explanations for some of these facts.

• “In general, the rules of stylistic reordering are very different from the grammatical transformations, which are much more deeply embedded in the grammatical system.”

  Aspects of the Theory of Syntax(1965) | Chap. 2 : Categories and Relations in Syntactic Theory

• “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”

  1990–1994 | talk at St. Michael's College , Vermont, around 1990 [7] .

• “Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.”

  2002 | Talk titled "Distorted Morality" at Harvard University , February 2002 [60] .

• “[...] one must be cautious in assessing the political significance of the relative freedom from repression — at least for the privileged — in the United States. Exactly what does it mean, concretely?”

  Language and Responsibility(1977)

• “In "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" by Paul Street [99] , 2008.”

  2007–09

• “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.”

  Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion(2020)