Noam Chomsky Quotes

Other peoples, at other times, as well as our Southern brethren at present, have felt that the suppression of general discussion was necessary to the preservation of a prized and peculiar institution. Spain, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland have all, at different times, experienced the forced suppression of some one branch of political or religious thought. Their histories have recorded the effect of that suppression; and the rule to be deduced therefrom is simply this: If the people among whom such suppression is attempted are ignorant, and are kept so as part of a system, the attempt may be successful, though in its results working destruction to the community; — if, however, they are intelligent, and the system incautiously admits into itself any plan of education, the attempt at suppression will be abandoned, as the result either of policy or violence. In this respect, then, on philosophical grounds, the Cotton dynasty is not likely to favor the education of the masses..

America's public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation.

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

Domination has its own aesthetics, and democratic domination has its democratic aesthetics.

Order always weighs on the individual. Disorder makes him wish for the police or for death. These are two extreme circumstances in which human nature is not at ease.

Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous.

There are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just dont like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is go and bleed It is more important to keep law and order in society than to be worried about weak-kneed people Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power.

The original intent of laws was to get the masses of people to accept the limitations superimposed upon them as being the result of their own misbehavior.

Influence is not government.

I think people don't talk enough about education and what we need to do in our public education system.

It all must start with an inspired, spontaneous idea.

If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community.

A portion of the multitude must ever be coerced.

The poet is he who inspires, rather than he who is inspired.

How powerful social mores are! Only a spider's web lies across the volcano, yet it refrains from erupting.

Almost all education has a political motive.

The great artist takes what he needs.

Men submit from habit to everything that seeks power.

The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal.

Nobody needs a movie to give them an idea.

If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame.

A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity

Education is not for profit. If you're not in education for profit, it's not going to be a fair critique for education.

The creation of art is not the fulfillment of a need but the creation of a need. The world never needed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony until he created it. Now we could not live without it.