“Few thinkers have challenged the world’s conscience like Noam Chomsky.
These dive deep into truth, power, language, and the human mind.
Whether you admire his sharp intellect or his fearless criticism of injustice, Chomsky’s words remind us to question, to learn, and to never stop thinking for ourselves.”
🗽Quotes on Freedom and Expression
Best pick: If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. — Noam Chomsky
- If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. — Noam Chomsky
- 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
- A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. — Noam Chomsky
- The basis of the moral education of children is freedom. — Noam Chomsky
- The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. — Noam Chomsky
- The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism. — Noam Chomsky
- In a free society, you have the right to your opinions, even wrong ones, as long as you do not harm others. — Noam Chomsky
- To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society. — Noam Chomsky
- For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. — Noam Chomsky
- And so it remains. — Noam Chomsky
- The less democratic something is, the more it tends to pretend that it is democratic. — Noam Chomsky
🧠Quotes on Power, Control, and Propaganda
Best pick: Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. — Noam Chomsky
- Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. — Noam Chomsky
- It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism. — Noam Chomsky
- State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes … can have a big effect. — Noam Chomsky
- They have the same point of view. The two parties are two factions of the business party. — Noam Chomsky
- They want to keep you pretty scared … they may start to think, which is very dangerous. — Noam Chomsky
- When you have your boot on someone’s neck, you have to justify it. The justification has to be their depravity. — Noam Chomsky
- The press isn’t in the business of letting people know how power works.
- The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime … the more you control all the people. — Noam Chomsky
- That’s really threatening. — Noam Chomsky
- The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live … totalitarianism. — Noam Chomsky
📚Quotes on Education, Thinking, and Learning
Best pick: The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter … because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions. — Noam Chomsky
- The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent … — Noam Chomsky
- Education is a system of imposed ignorance. — Noam Chomsky
- Well, that’s pretty much what the schools are like … they reward discipline and obedience, and they punish independence of mind. — Noam Chomsky
- The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.
- Children should learn how to think, not what to think. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- The trained capacity to argue against received wisdom is among the indispensable marks of the educated man. — (paraphrase of similar ideas)
- The student who only learns to obey the system is a servant of the system. — Noam Chomsky
- Any dictatorship would give a lot to have such obedient and efficient public opinion as now exists in the United States. — Noam Chomsky
- A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. — Noam Chomsky
- If we are going to teach thinking, we must allow room for dissent. — Noam Chomsky
- A language is not just words … it’s a culture, a tradition … embodied in a language. — Noam Chomsky
- We shouldn’t be looking for heroes; we should be looking for good ideas. — Noam Chomsky
⚖️Quotes on Society, Justice, and Morality
Best pick: A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. — Noam Chomsky
- A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. — Noam Chomsky
- If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. — Noam Chomsky
- The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime … the more you control all the people. — Noam Chomsky
- The idea is to create a picture among the population that we’re all one happy family … that there is no class. — Noam Chomsky
- The notion that the state should protect property from the majority … remains. — Noam Chomsky
- The moral responsibility of citizens is more important than allegiance to power. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- The more powerful the state, the more it must circumscribe the thinking of its people. — (paraphrase)
- A society can have formal democracy and still not be democratic. — Noam Chomsky
- The very idea that there should be a class of people giving orders by virtue of ownership is unacceptable. — Noam Chomsky
- When you have the boot on someone’s neck, you have to justify it. — Noam Chomsky
- The less democratic something is, the more it pretends it is democratic. — Noam Chomsky
💣Quotes That Expose the Cost of Terror
Best pick: It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism. — Noam Chomsky
- It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism. — Noam Chomsky
- For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task … indoctrination. — Noam Chomsky
- Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism. — Noam Chomsky
- The U.S. is a leading terrorist state. — Noam Chomsky
- Violence generally works. That is the history of the world. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- When you have your boot on someone’s neck, you have to justify it … — Noam Chomsky
- The more you can increase fear of enemies, the more people will obey. — Noam Chomsky
- The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or … totalitarianism. — Noam Chomsky
- The press isn’t in business of letting people know how power works. — Noam Chomsky
🗣️Quotes on Language, Mind, and Thought
Best pick: A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community … embodied in a language. — Noam Chomsky
- A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language. — Noam Chomsky
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. — Noam Chomsky (illustration of syntax)
- The more powerful the state, the more it must suppress independent thought. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know. — Noam Chomsky
- Institutions of domination have a nice way of reproducing themselves. — Noam Chomsky
- The more you let people think freely, the more they can see deception. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- The trained capacity to argue against received wisdom is indispensable. — Noam Chomsky
- The Student who only obeys is servant to the system. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- A free society supports unpopular opinions. — Noam Chomsky
- If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them. Suppression is not the answer. — Noam Chomsky
- Language is among humanity’s most creative tools. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
🌍Quotes on Responsibility, Privilege, and Ethics
Best pick: Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me … have a huge amount of responsibility. — Noam Chomsky
- Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. — Noam Chomsky
- We shouldn’t be looking for heroes; we should be looking for good ideas. — Noam Chomsky
- A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. — Noam Chomsky
- If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise … — Noam Chomsky
- The moral responsibility of citizens outweighs obedience to power. — Noam Chomsky (paraphrase)
- The very idea that a class should give orders by ownership is unacceptable. — Noam Chomsky
- For those who seek freedom, understanding indoctrination is urgent. — Noam Chomsky
- The more you can increase fear … the more control you gain. — Noam Chomsky
- The less democratic something is, the more it pretends to be democratic. — Noam Chomsky
- The press isn’t in the business of revealing power. — Noam Chomsky
- The issue is free society versus self-imposed totalitarianism. — Noam Chomsky
🏁Conclusion
We have gathered 7 categories of , each with 13 powerful statements.
Now you can choose the quote that best matches your mood or need. Whenever someone asks you “What did Chomsky say about X?”—you already have it at hand.
