Noam Chomsky Quotes

They’re like,‘If you have an opinion against us, we’re gonna shut you down.' That’s not American. If you’re gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you’re against it you should have the right to be against it in peace.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do.

In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged.

I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.

I don't believe in this idea of, 'That's hate speech, stop it.'

It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree.

The lawsuits we are seeing today to ostracize and prevent different ideas recall previous eras. We must understand that Islam has given man freedom of thought. Islam's history proves that no one is immune to error except the Prophet.

Democracy depends on the idea that we hold each others’ right to express ourselves and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want. You can’t impose tolerance top-down.

You may dislike what somebody else has said; that is perfectly valid. You may not agree with what somebody else has said. But saying something cannot possibly amount to sedition.

If the so called 'democratic' individuals out there really believe in their talk about diversity, they should let those with truly different opinions be allowed to talk freely in public, too.

Personally, I think people need to get over this 'being offended' thing. Being offended does not give you the right to silence people. I get offended by things all the time - it's just part of life. The right not to be offended is not a human right, especially in a democracy.

I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.

In the end, the thing that's important about free expression is that it's the right from which all other rights are derived. If you can't articulate ideas and if you can't articulate critiques of other peoples' ideas, then you're powerless. What always increases the power of an authoritarian regime is whether it can successfully prevent people from expressing themselves.

If you're always in the company of people who agree with you, you're going to think of people who don't agree with you as venal or stupid. I constantly tell my students that if they're in the company of people who always say "amen" to what you say, find other company. And that is the source of illiberalism, when you are unable to listen to someone who thinks differently. That's when democracies are in trouble.

Very often in free speech cases you find yourself defending material that you personally detest, because of course it's no trick to defend the free speech of people you either agree with or who don't particularly upset you. It's when people really upset you that you discover if you believe in free speech or not.

I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.

Intolerance is a beautiful thing...There are people that are politically correct that want to say the cardinal sin of the hour is intolerance and I think that is a bunch of junk.

It is a confession of the weakness of our own faith in the righteousness of our cause when we attempt to suppress by law those who do not agree with us.

I would rather put up with Rush Limbaugh and live in a country where we all do have freedom of speech.

The next time you get the urge to shut somebody up because they don't see the world exactly the same way you do, take a deep breath, get out your Bill of Rights, and count to the ten amendments.

You have a right to protest. But I don't quite understand why anybody thinks it's a good idea to deny somebody else the right to express his or her point of view.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized.

I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself.