Quotes by Noam Chomsky

About Noam Chomsky:

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist advocate. Sometimes described as the "father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy. He has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is currently Professor Emeritus, and has authored over 100 books. He has been described as a prominent cultural figure, and was voted the "world's top public intellectual" in a 2005 poll.
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Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocitie...

Noam Chomsky

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.

Noam Chomsky

Greece has been, in many ways, a partially dysfunctional society. For example, the wealthy barely pay taxes... to an extent, that's true elsewhere, including the United States, but it's been pretty extreme in Greece.

Noam Chomsky

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 lo...

Noam Chomsky

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.

Noam Chomsky

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

Noam Chomsky

If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

Noam Chomsky

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.

Noam Chomsky

In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professors is routine.

Noam Chomsky

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American aggression - thus tax refusal, draft refusal, avoidance of work that can be used by the agencies of militarism and repression, all seem to me essential.

Noam Chomsky

There happen to be a lot of people around who spent an hour on the Internet and think they know a lot of physics, but it doesn't work like that... There's a reason there are graduate schools in these departments.

Noam Chomsky

The appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide.

Noam Chomsky

The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws.

Noam Chomsky

When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.

Noam Chomsky

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

Noam Chomsky

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.

Noam Chomsky

If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we'd think it's a pretty serious problem. In fact, we'd probably go to war.

Noam Chomsky

John Lewis Gaddis is not only the favorite historian of the Reagan administration, but he's regarded as the dean of Cold War scholarship, the leading figure in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale.

Noam Chomsky

Since the civil war in Laos was resumed in earnest in 1963, American participation has been veiled in secrecy.

Noam Chomsky

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

Noam Chomsky

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they c...

Noam Chomsky

Author Bio

  • NameNoam Chomsky
  • DescriptionAmerican linguist, philosopher
  • AliasesAvram Noam Chomsky; A. Noam Chomsky; Chomsky, Noam
  • BornDecember 7, 1928
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Linguist; Opinion Journalist; Political Writer; Educationist; Media Critic
  • AwardsOrwell Award; Guggenheim Fellowship