Quotes from Noam Chomsky

No use in waiting, we can all work hard to bring about changes.

Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.

Reviewing the record of American intervention in Indochina in the Pentagon Papers, one cannot fail to be struck by the continuity of basic assumptions from one administration to the next. Never has there been the slightest deviation from the principle that a noncommunist regime must be imposed and defended, regardless of popular sentiment.

Popular struggles to bring about a freer and more just society have been resisted by violence and repression, and massive efforts to control opinion and attitudes. Over time, however, they have met with considerable success, even though there is a long way to go, and there is often regression.

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.

It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

My feeling is that if any Republican was elected it would be almost a death knell for the species literally, just because of their attitude on climate change.

Terrorists regard themselves as a vanguard. They're trying to mobilize others to their cause. I mean, every specialist on terrorism knows that.

It makes sense to work towards a better world, but it doesn't make any sense to have illusions about what the real world is.

There are enormous opportunities to work for a world that is more free, peaceful and just.

There are all the activist groups on every imaginable topic - solidarity groups, environmental and feminist groups - sectors of these movements do very valuable work.

You have 30% of the world unemployed, a huge amount of work, that needs to be done just rebuilding the society alone.

The reason I am a political radical is that I work on syntax. If I worked on semantics (which in fact I do), I'd be a good Thatcherite.

You have to love that government, but hate the government that might work in your interest and that you could control. That's an interesting propaganda task, but it's been carried out very well.

Academics are mostly professionals, involved in their work and other concerns of their own, with no particular interest in the workings of the ideological system.

It's a good idea to revitalize community colleges, to cut back, to modify the student loan program so it doesn't go through banks.

When I was a college student and I got interested in linguistics the concern among students was, this is a lot of fun, but after we have done a structural analysis of every language in the world what's left? It was assumed there were basically no puzzles.

The social and physical construction of suburban America really was quite complex. It was a very elaborate system, and clearly a massive social engineering project that has changed U.S. society enormously.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

The [Ronald] Reagan administration told the business world that they were not going to enforce the labor laws.