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#1

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: belief, believe, despise, expression, freedom, freedom-of-expression

2164 likes

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#2

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: education, education-system, instituions

1542 likes

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#3

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”
― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

tags: 1998

1494 likes

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#4

“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: participate, responsibility, stop-terrorism, terror, terrorism

774 likes

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#5

“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
― Noam Chomsky

2817 likes

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#6

“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: apathy, complacency, consumerism, control, learned-helplessness, resignation, the-powers-that-be

761 likes

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#7

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.”
― Noam Chomsky

627 likes

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#8

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: future, optimism, responsibility

920 likes

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#9

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines that everybody else is saying,... [o]r else you say something which in fact is true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.”
― Noam Chomsky, Propaganda and the Public Mind

tags: truth

480 likes

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#10

“I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: authority, challenge, dismantle, domination, freedom, heirarchy, human-freedom, illegitimate-power, justification

535 likes

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#11

“Education is a system of imposed ignorance.”
― Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

tags: education, homeschooling, ignorance, public-education

706 likes

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#12

“See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: violence

389 likes

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#13

“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.”
― Noam Chomsky

685 likes

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#14

“That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: books, politics

457 likes

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#15

“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”
― Noam Chomsky

458 likes

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#16

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”
― Noam Chomsky

173 likes

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#17

“That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: anarchism, anarchy, authority, politics

430 likes

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#18

“...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: 2004, bible, genocide, wallace-shawn

240 likes

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#19

“It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: art, human-condition

361 likes

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#20

“In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: democracy-freedom

137 likes

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#21

“Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: science

212 likes

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#22

“I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: philosophy

840 likes

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#23

“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
― Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

tags: crime, double-standards, hypocrisy, politics, power, war-crimes

704 likes

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#24

“Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: ignorance, mysteries, problems

143 likes

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#25

“The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.”
― Noam Chomsky

127 likes

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#26

“It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: america, independence, islam, united-states, us

468 likes

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#27

“Most problems of teaching are not problems of growth but helping cultivate growth. As far as I know, and this is only from personal experience in teaching, I think about ninety percent of the problem in teaching, or maybe ninety-eight percent, is just to help the students get interested. Or what it usually amounts to is to not prevent them from being interested. Typically they come in interested, and the process of education is a way of driving that defect out of their minds. But if children['s] ... normal interest is maintained or even aroused, they can do all kinds of things in ways we don't understand.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: education

181 likes

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#28

“How it is we have so much information, but know so little?”
― Noam Chomsky

443 likes

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#29

“If you look at history, even recent history, you see that there is indeed progress. . . . Over time, the cycle is clearly, generally upwards. And it doesn't happen by laws of nature. And it doesn't happen by social laws. . . . It happens as a result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, to look at them without illusions, and to go to work chipping away at them, with no guarantee of success — in fact, with a need for a rather high tolerance for failure along the way, and plenty of disappointments.”
― Noam Chomsky

121 likes

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#30

“Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.

In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.”
― Noam Chomsky

338 likes

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belief
believe
despise
expression
freedom
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education
education-system
instituions
1998
participate
responsibility
stop-terrorism
terror
terrorism
apathy
complacency
consumerism
control
learned-helplessness
resignation
the-powers-that-be
future
optimism
truth
authority
challenge
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heirarchy
human-freedom
illegitimate-power
justification
homeschooling
ignorance
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violence
books
politics
anarchism
anarchy
2004
bible
genocide
wallace-shawn
art
human-condition
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philosophy
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double-standards
hypocrisy
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