Noam Chomsky Quotes

I've done truth to power all my life. It's got me into trouble, but who cares?

Not many people were speaking truth to power in the '80s. I had a really good time doing it - I found it gratifying. It was a joy to have an opportunity to say what you believed. It's challenging to do it in fiction, but I liked writing the novels. I liked writing 'Democracy' particularly.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

Speaking truth to power is never going to be easy.

I feel like my career is to speak truth to power, and a lot of times, that sounds like troublemaking. If speaking truth is troublemaking, then yes, I will consider myself a professional at that.

You know, as a comedian, that's what you do. You speak truth to power by making people laugh.

Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.

I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.

Comedians, such as yourself, Jon Stewart and others, are a valuable supplement, and here's why: Good journalism at its best frequently speaks truth to power. What's happened with journalists - again, I don't except myself from this criticism - in some ways we've lost our guts. We need a spine transplant. What's happened is comedians, in their own way, speak truth to power and fill that vacuum that we in journalism have too often left, particularly post 9/11.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

Comedy often comes at the expense of others, and to do that smartly, you don't want to make fun of vulnerable people. You want to make fun of people in power, and so you need to really understand the dynamics of power.

But I don't write about sex for today's teenagers. Or Doc Martens boots either. I'm more interested in exploring how exactly the world is run, which doesn't really change that much from one generation to another.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

Power doesn't just exist. It is threaded through different mechanisms of control. I'm interested in those complexities. But I want to address that in very forthright language and sometimes with images.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.

I do think the biggest problem newspapers have is loss of trust, and I feel that's a result of failure to speak truth to power.

You're not going to be liked by everybody when you speak the truth. I don't speak the truth to put people down; I don't speak the truth to show disrespect.

It is people's willingness to take personal risks and confront the powerful by daring to speak the truth, not the truth itself, that ultimately leads to change.

The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.

Sociological critics are waste makers.

Sarcasm all around the world is always against right wing and against people in power. That's the definition of political sarcasm.

France is obsessed with power. Our mythology of power bears the imprint of nostalgia and obsolescence.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself

Telling the truth -- telling thoughtful truths -- should not be a revolutionary act. Speaking truths to power should not be sacrificial, but they are. But I think if more of us chose to do this for the greater good, we'd be in better spaces than we are right now.