Noam Chomsky Quotes

If the 'Athens Spring' - when the Greek people courageously rejected the catastrophic austerity conditions of the previous bailouts - has one lesson to teach, it is that Greece will recover only when the European Union makes the transition from 'We the states' to 'We the European people.'

I think that the real tragedy of Greece - aside of the savagery of European bureaucracy, Brussels bureaucracy and northern banks, which was really savage - is that the Greek crisis didn't have to erupt. It could have been taken care of pretty easily at the very beginning. But it happened and Syriza came into office with a declared commitment to combat it, and in fact as I recall they actually called a referendum, which horrified Europe.

Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika - three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do.

We will do whatever we could do to keep Greece inside the euro and inside Europe.

Europe is on an economic collision course with reality.

We have much more to fear from economic weakness in Europe than in economic strength in Europe.

The Greeks do not have the option of borrowing because nobody will lend to them.

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.

Europe's younger generation has only experienced austerity.

Trillion-dollar bailouts, bloated budgets, and boondoggle spending packages aren't working, at least for my friends and neighbors.

In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts to build an economy which creates more jobs and income, not more unemployment and suffering.

If the Arab world today looked like Tunisia, it would be a huge blow for the extreme ideologies. But Tunisia needs more support than it is getting, particularly from their close neighbors in Europe who have a great stake in North Africa.

This is taking place inside Europe. This is taking place inside a once great nation. The nation that invented democracy. We are on the edge of total social breakdown. And frankly, as far as the euro is concerned and the austerity measures are concerned, the medicine is killing the patient.

Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.

We should not be borrowing money from the Chinese to bail out the Greeks. What's coming next? Intergalactic bailouts?

The verdict of the Greek people renders the troika a thing of the past for our common European framework.

The US is not a superpower. The US is a financially dependent country that foreign lenders can close down at will. Washington still hasn’t learned this. American hubris can lead the administration and Congress into a bailout solution that the rest of the world, which has to finance it, might not accept.

I like this idea of the re-foundation of the European Union, maybe it can be done, because Europe - I do not say is unique, but it has a force, a culture, a history that cannot be wasted, and we must do everything so that the European Union has the strength and also the inspiration to make it go forward.

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

It is not more Europe or less Europe that we need. We need a better Europe.

The kindness of strangers and the support of the international community are truly the rays of hope we North Korean people need.

I think any time you couple the term "Wall Street" with "bailout" or something like that, you know - I don't like what's going on in Wall Street.

How can we still speak of the salvation and reformation of Europe, when we have to ask Europe's destroyer for help?

We believe that what they call "Grexit" [a Greek exit from the eurozone] is not an option for us.

The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."