Noam Chomsky Quotes

The mob does not deserve to be enlightened.

Pure, hard-core liberals believe in a superior race. They think they're it. They believe they're more intelligent than the general run of mankind, better suited than the little people are to manage the little people's lives. They think they have the one true vision, the ability to solve all the moral dilemmas of the century. They prefer big government because that is the first step to totalitarianism, toward unquestioned rule by the elite. And of course they see themselves as the elite.

When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and -- eventually -- incapable of determining their own destinies.

In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.

The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived.

America is run by the rich and powerful in their own interest. To an extent that I think is hard to exaggerate, the intellectuals - academics, journalists and so on - are bought off. And that's a big change that happened in the United States in the last 30 or 40 years.

The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.

Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.

The idea that the universe is running down comes from a simple observation about machines. Every machine consumes more energy than it renders.

Obama administration didn't have one person who had ever worked in business. Not one Obama cabinet member had ever seriously had a job, run a company, met a payroll in the American economy. And, as such, no way of understanding how business is done, from negotiations to any other aspect of it. In fact, people in Obama's cabinet were arrogant and condescending and looking down on those people as a bunch of shysters and a bunch of cheats and people that kill their customers and they're destroying the planet.

Trust is always a good idea. For someone else.

The idea of losing the three at Hayward Field and the idea of losing my specialty to someone who wasn't running his specialty. Mostly, the idea of losing in front of my people. They haven't forgotten about me.

Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas.

We have nightmares because our brain is running simulations to put us in jeopardy to see what we'll do or to acclimatize us to that idea that something bad could happen. It's just how human beings are wired because the entire time we were evolving we had to jump quick or the leopard would get us or whatever it was. It's Darwinian.

The poor yield to the rich, the common people to the upper ten, the servants to their masters, the ignorant to the scholars; but there is nobody who does not imagine that he is really better than others.

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by... liberals.

Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism.

I've seen every one, from Motley Crue to John Denver, with tears running down my face. I had no idea everyone had such a hard time.

The idea that people should be allowed to decide something about their own fate is just anathema to European elites.

The idea of Curious Yellow, of surrender to a higher cause, seems to appeal to a certain small subset of humanity. These people manipulate the worm, customizing its payload to establish quisling dictatorships in its shadow, and the horrors these gauleiters invent in its service are far worse than the crude but direct tactics the original worm used.

If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas.

One either imposes one's ideas or one is imposed on.

I found out that a lot of my liberal friends weren't liberal because they weren't liberal about approaching anybody else's ideas, or at least standing for it. They started getting really animalistic about, "I can't even associate with this guy. He's stupid. He's an idiot."

The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action.

It takes one asshole to ruin the whole thing. That's it. One. The problem with the world is one asshole comes up with a really bad idea and now we're all taking our shoes off at the airport.