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In fact, by universal grammar I mean just that system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to which every language necessarily conforms.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
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East Oak Lane
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To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.
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It's not a matter of public relations and rhetorical style but of actions. It's the actions and policies under George W.Bush administration that have left the US government remarkably isolated, feared and often hated to an extent with no historical precedent.
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The labor movement had been pretty much killed in the 1920s, almost destroyed. It revived in the 1930s and made a huge difference. By the late 1930s the business world was already trying to find ways to beat it back.
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In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice . . . Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin.
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The people who live on the land - Israelis and Palestinians - have a right to live in security and peace.
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Fed and electoral college could use some tinkering, but they are not the source of the problems.
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Education is not for profit. If you're not in education for profit, it's not going to be a fair critique for education.
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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.
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South America goes its own way dramatically in international affairs.
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If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
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Human language is nothing like the signalling systems of other animals.
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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.
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If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong.
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The entire socioeconomic system is based on production for profit and a growth imperative that cannot be sustained.
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We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.
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I think such an inquiry will reveal a rather different picture: namely, it will reveal a very strong tendency for the intellectuals who are respected and privileged to be those who subordinate themselves to power.
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When you read about the end of the Soviet Union, it's always about the death of socialism. They never say the death of democracy. But it makes about the same sense.
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