Noam Chomsky

"A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster."

"The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming."

"In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it."

"Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, 'all options are open' - meaning the threat of war."

"Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on."

"As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss."

"Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college."

"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy."

"Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today's political scene."

"Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense."

"Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way."

"Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society."

"Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich."

"I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven - that's none of my business, ultimately. I won't lecture her on the philosophy of science."

"If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long."

"International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places."

"It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction."

"It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided."

"No matter what engineering field you're in, you learn the same basic science and mathematics. And then maybe you learn a little bit about how to apply it."

"One of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of politics, as he calls it - very outstanding political economist - which essentially - I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state."

"Palestinians have no wealth or power."

"Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires."

"Some international law specialists compare the invasion of Iraq to the 'crimes against the peace' for which Nazi leaders were indicted at Nuremberg."

"The 'peace movement' exists only in the fantasies of the paranoid."

"The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society."

"The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia - that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone."

"The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!"

"The prescription for endless war poses a far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do, for reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well."

"The respected intellectuals are those who conform and serve power interests."

"The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival."

"The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy."

"There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly."

"There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction - that is, the hatred and the anger - they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they're rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger."

"What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane."