Noam Chomsky Quotes

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.

The Supreme Court has held that code is speech. And it doesn't matter that it's done on a computer or done face to face or done in a newspaper, reporting the facts of the world is protected speech.

Free speech includes the right to not speak.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

[E]rroneous statement … must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to be given the breathing space that they need ... to survive.

Opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

Under the privilege of the 1st Amendment many, many ridiculous things are said.

The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.

Protected free speech has boundaries, and one boundary is fraud.

We still have a First Amendment that protects your business and free speech.

While I unconditionally support the First Amendment, inciting violence against others due to their political affiliation is not constitutionally protected speech.

We went to America a few times and [Brian] Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there came a time when George [Harrison] and I said 'Listen, when they ask next time, we're going to say we don't like that war and we think they should get right out.' That's what we did.

I think the International Criminal Court could be a threat to American security interests, because the prosecutor of the court has enormous discretion in going after war crimes.

I think you might be considered a terrorist for asking the question! It can be so broadly defined now. And the thing is, you’re not privy to those decisions. Anyone who expresses any opinion can be considered a terrorist.

I see this piece of legislation as essentially being a declaration of virtual war. It is giving the President tremendous powers to pursue war efforts against a sovereign nation. ...I think it is another example of a flawed foreign policy that we have followed for a good many decades.

All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying to avert.

In the US the problem has been, for instance, that Nazis have rights of free expression, right? But other kinds of racist speech is not protected. And you have to link the speech to conduct or to a certain kind of threat against minority population. I know that in Europe, this kind of framework doesn't exist in the same way so it's very difficult to make the analogy.

Why did the people think [the Vietnam war] was fundamentally wrong and immoral? The guys who ran the polls, John E. Rielly, a professor at the University of Chicago, a liberal professor, he said what that means is that people thought too many Americans had being killed. Another possibility is they didn't like the fact that we were carrying out the worst crime since the Second World War. But that's so inconceivable that wasn't even offered as a possible reason.

But I - and I just think it's very - one of the problems of defending the extraordinary principle of freedom of speech is that you have to defend freedom of speech for people like that too.

The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.