Noam Chomsky Quotes

Humanity will live as long as there are humans.

What prevails in every corner of this globalized world is the real struggle of our species for its own survival.

Whatever we believe about how we got to be the extraordinary creatures we are today is far less important than bringing our intellect to bear on how do we get together now around the world and get out of the mess that we've made. That's the key thing now. Never mind how we got to be who we are.

The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.

On one hand, I think people are destined for something incredible if we don't wipe ourselves out, but I think we're going to wipe 90 percent of ourselves out.

Endurance, after all, is the only reason we even exist. We think of ourselves as nature's deadliest animals, but the truth is, a naked human is the biggest wimp in the wild. We have no fangs, no claws, no strength, and no speed.

The Atomic Age is here to stay - but are we?

The planet will survive. Whether we get to be here and enjoy it, or enjoy life as we've known it, is what's questionable.

When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, 'How long do you think our species might last?' I've read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about two million years. Is it possible we can have an average life span as a species? And do you picture us two million years more or a million and a half years, or 5,000?

The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.

There are plenty of people on Earth. It's not like the human race is going to disappear if a few people don't come back. Exploration is dangerous.

You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the earth, we must believe that each succeeding generation will be wiser than its progenitors.

Nature—pitiless in a pitiless universe—is certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting the earth.

I am afforded a bit of easy wonderment in relative comfort as to how humans have lasted so long. Climate- and geography-wise, the planet seems to have little use for us.

All of us have the same thing coming - death. It's waiting. But I don't want to go. I want to live to be 102!

Climate change has far-reaching consequences for our own survival on this planet. As an issue, it overrides everything else.

There's no question that if we stay on planet Earth and never leave, that eventually we'll be wiped out.

Science and technology have amplified the effects of the dysfunction of the human mind in its unawakened state to such a degree that humanity, and probably the planet, would not survive for another hundred years if human consciousness remains unchanged.

I don’t know how to save the world. I don’t have the answers or The Answer. I hold no secret knowledge as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present. I only know that without compassion and respect for all of Earth’s inhabitants, none of us will survive—nor will we deserve to.

When skies are hanged and oceans drowned, the single secret will still be man

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!

There's so many things happening with computers and what-not, where we may be able to live until 150 and even longer, but if the planet's not here for us to live on it, if we burn ourselves out from global warming and everything else, if we don't figure that out, if we don't figure out an alternative form of energy, I think we're in big, fat trouble.

You can certainly destroy enough of humanity so that only the greatest act of faith can persuade you that what's left will be human.