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There is a kind of nonlinguistic thought going on which we are trying to represent in language, and we know that sometimes we fail.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Linguist
Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
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Philosopher
East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
A. Noam Chomsky
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Sometimes
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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In fact, it's pretty dramatic when you get to 1975, very revealing, the [Vietnam] war ends. Everybody had to write something about the war, what it meant. You also had polls of public opinion, and they're dramatically different.
Noam Chomsky
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I don't really think there have been transitional periods to socialism. There have been efforts, but they have usually been destroyed by a combination of external force and internal corruption.
Noam Chomsky
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People who spend their working hours in a lab or research library or a classroom might be intent primarily on keeping or advancing their elite positions, thereby lending tacit support to power structures. Or they might not be.
Noam Chomsky
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Independent development can be a virus that can infect others.
Noam Chomsky
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The UN to some extent diffuses U.S. power. Therefore it's less direct an agency of the United States than the U.S. Army is. But still, it can't escape the distribution of power in the world.
Noam Chomsky
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I think there are real possibilities of reaching out to many of the Trump voters, those who voted for Obama believing his rhetoric.
Noam Chomsky
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Women taking care of children . . . it makes sense to pay them for that work . . . they should be paid for it, but that requires tax payments. And the same is true about protection of the environment.
Noam Chomsky
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The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it's likely to harm them.
Noam Chomsky
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In much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state.
Noam Chomsky
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States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
Noam Chomsky
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There is kind of a fundamental conformity, which is a virtual requirement to enter into the media.
Noam Chomsky
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The internet is something created largely by public funding.
Noam Chomsky
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In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.
Noam Chomsky
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Real schools ought to provide people with techniques of self-defense, but that would mean teaching the truth about the world and about the society, and schools couldn't survive very long if they did that.
Noam Chomsky
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There are no conservatives in the United States. The United States does not have a conservative tradition. The people who call themselves conservatives, like the Heritage Foundation or Gingrich, are believers in -- are radical statists. They believe in a powerful state, but a welfare state for the rich.
Noam Chomsky
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If the authors and custodians of history turn out to have an attractive image, it is only reasonable to look beyond and ask whether the image they construct is accurate.
Noam Chomsky
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Bolivia is a striking example. The mostly white, Europeanized elite, which is a minority, happens to be sitting on most of the hydrocarbon reserves. For the first time Bolivia is becoming democratic. So it's therefore bitterly hated by the West, which despises democracy, because it's much too dangerous.
Noam Chomsky
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A bombing was planned [in Syria], which would probably make the situation worse, but would at least establish US credibility.
Noam Chomsky
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I think that has a lot of dangers, as does government surveillance, which is way too high.
Noam Chomsky
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The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.
Noam Chomsky