Noam Chomsky Quotes

I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that we will be the ones who will help the poor overthrow the rich, who will talk about land reform and education and health facilities for everyone, and that when the Red Cross or Amnesty International comes to count the bodies and take the testimony of women raped, that our side won't be the heavies.

None of us can think we are exempt from concerns for the poor and for social justice.

You don't need a passport to work on human rights.

I think that for many of us, the years of the Civil Rights movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy running for president in 1968 to end the war and so forth - these were defining moment in terms of trying to hold government accountable and have a level of responsibility and truth-telling.

We've gone thorough religious wars and civil wars. America has gone through slavery, we've all gone through two world wars, segregation. Ultimately it's been a bloody, trying, wasteful, but eventually positive struggle.

I think the activism of the 1960s had a very definite civilizing effect on the whole society in all kinds of ways. So lots of things that by now are almost taken for granted were heretical in the 1960s. We had anti-sodomy laws until not many years ago.

The time has come for an all-out war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".

C'mon everybody, yeah, this is your life I'm talking about a revolution we gotta organize We don't need no segregation, we don't need no race New age revelation, I think we got a case. I'm OK as long as u are here with me Sexuality is all we ever need.

We need to shift from an economic to a humanitarian organizing principle for human civilization. And women, en masse, should be saying so.

Leave the poor Some time for self-improvement. Let them not Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms For bread, but have some space to think and feel Like moral and immortal creatures.

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

I think that we need to be more aware of how we are all interconnected, and how we actually need to invest in safety nets and in education, and that we need to come to the realization that health care is a human right and try to provide that for people.

No nation has the right to bring about a revolution, even though such a change may be most urgently needed, if the price is the blood of one single innocent individual.

Religion's voice has been taken away. It was taken away by Lyndon Johnson in the 1970s because of a dispute he had, I think, with the church. And this was his way of silencing the church.

Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist.

It would be naïve to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems ... However, with faith and perseverance, ... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace.

The conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice... must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession.

If you think creating a world without any poverty is impossible, let's do it. Because it is the right thing to do.

We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid.

The law is a powerful thing but the law doesn't always change what's in people's hearts. And so all of us have an obligation to think about how we're treating other people.

Let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete. Where there is poverty and sickness, including AIDS, where human beings are being oppressed, there is more work to be done. Our work is for freedom for all.

Think of US slavery in 1850, or the subjection of women. Both of these injustices could have been - and were! - defended by pointing out, quite correctly, that this situation of slaves and women had been improving throughout the preceding century. Slaves, in particular, were worked less hard, beaten and raped less frequently, better fed, and less often ripped apart from their families. So would a celebration of moral progress have been appropriate in 1850? Surely not. Slavery could have been and should have been abolished - then, if not before.

We've arrived at a point where the President of the United States is going to lead a war on traditional marriage.

I've always been passionate about human rights in general. I think anyone who knows me can attest to that. I really wasn't given a voice until very recently, but I've always spoken out about the bullshit that's going on since the beginning of having a platform.