Noam Chomsky Quotes

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

I'm a huge fan of the liberal arts approach of teaching you to think, analyze, and communicate, then sending you out into the world to cause trouble.

He who dares not reason, is a slave.

We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it.

The brainy class is made up of individuals who think for themselves and beyond formal education are continuous learners who tend to be self-taught.

The proper business of a University is ... not to tell us ... what we ought to believe, and make us accept the belief as a duty; but to give us information and training, and help us to form our own beliefs in a manner worthy of intelligent beings.

Soundness of understanding is connected with freedom of enquiry; consequently, opinion should, as far as public security will admit, be exempted from restraint.

When it comes to art and science, people don't like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they're closed off about it.

The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.

Class I to XII wasn't much help; I was always a mediocre student. But when I pursued higher education and studied economics with theatre or psychology with science fiction, I got a whole new world view.

The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

Education should prepare our minds to use its own powers of reason and conception rather than filling it with the accumulated misconceptions of the past.

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

Bridge the gap with closed minds though careful dissection of ideas and solid presentation of fact.

Every man should be the intellectual proprietor of himself, honest with himself, and intellectually hospitable; and upon every brain, reason should be enthroned as king.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Sometimes I think that our laboratories are but little earthworks which men build about themselves, and whose puny tops too often conceal from view the Olympian heights; that we who work in these laboratories are but skilled artisans compared with the man who is able to observe and to draw accurate deductions from the world about him.

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

I'm a huge believer in learning anything from multiple points of view.

People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals.

As a kid, I spent every summer bent over a stack of books, obsessively writing detailed reports on each one.

Education must be aimed at creating a wider imagination in the child, not at suppressing. The child's mind must be set free.

You must avoid letting anyone usurp your freedom of thought in any way, whether on religious or other grounds. People must use their minds and think and there are situations where the use of the intellect is necessary so that excessive fantasy or fancy can be held in check.

Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that, by the time they leave school, every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it