Noam Chomsky Quotes

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

Maybe we judge people too much by their looks because it's easier than seeing what's really important.

A scientific approach means knowing what one knows and what one doesn't. Absolute or complete knowledge is unscientific.

I didn't realise how important stupid people are in your life, because you ask yourself, what made stupid people so stupid? What made them the way they are?

If people don’t have an understanding of what science is and what scientists do, then they can tend to think that global warming, for example, is just a matter of opinion.

Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another the most varied opinions can be reconciled - thus one of the most important tasks for humankind today and in the future is that we should learn to live together and understand one another. If this human fellowship is not achieved, all talk of development is empty.

I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage - very important things to me - and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me.

I'm not going to say how, specifically, but I will continue to speak out about human rights and freedoms. Absolutely. We can speak out about what we are angry about, but the most important thing is to try and help people understand the reality and not be blinded by something that is not the truth.

I'm convinced that the most important division in human affairs is probably not the one between left and right, liberal and conservative. It's the one between zealotry and understanding, between absolute conviction and compromise, between preachers and politicians.

Art makes better humans, art is necessary in understanding the world and art makes people happy. Undeniably, art is not optional.

For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.

The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.

What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.

I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.

Someone has to ask you a question," George continues meaningly, "before you can answer it. But it's so seldom you find anyone who'll ask the right questions. Most people aren't that much interested.

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

I did it through our ministries. We had ordination and basically understanding there ought - to be ordained that God has set apart, for the purposes of ministry. This is an important thing because of that defining moment, when I held that word up, I said I want to spend the rest of my life helping people.

For some people, I got away with something. And you know what? That's a fair thing to say, for them. I'm not saying I agree with that, but I can see how they can say that. But it's a matter of just like...you know, I'm really fortunate. As a journalist, I don't have to agree with you to talk to you. My job is to figure out why you think the way you think. I want to get to the root of why you think the way you think. That's what I find most fascinating as a storyteller.

We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet... I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, 'I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it.' The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.

Being able to allow people to be who they are without trying to change them is important.

'What is' is more important than 'what should be.' Too many people are looking at 'what is' from a position of thinking 'what should be'.

What science is all about is a process. It's like saying, "Well, is it important for people to know that World War II happened?" Well it's part of what makes us who we are. And so, there's basic bits of science we need to know.

To ask the 'right' question is far more important than to receive the answer. The solution of a problem lies in the understanding of the problem; the answer is not outside the problem, it is in the problem.

Philosophy can't build bridges, but can encourage people to cross them.

I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.