Actually, Bush, technically speaking, is not really President-because he refused to take the Oath of Office. I don’t know how many of you noticed this, but the wording of the Oath of Office is written...

Hamas is regularly described as ‘Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.’ One will be hard put to find something like ‘democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state...

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...

I think maybe the classic formulation was by David Hume in “Of the First Principles of Government,” where he pointed out that “Force is always on the side of the governed.” Whether it’s a military...

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I...

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...

In his book Politics, which is the foundation of the study of political systems, and very interesting, Aristotle talked mainly about Athens. But he studied various political systems – oligarchy, monarchy – and didn’t like...

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

[A]s long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there...

Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

To speak truth to power is not a particularly honorable vocation.

First of all, we’ve never had capitalism, so it can’t end. We have some variety of state capitalism. If you fly on an airplane, you’re basically flying in a modified bomber. If you buy drugs,...

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.

…the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.

..reading a book doesn’t mean just turning the pages. It means thinking about it, identifying parts that you want to go back to, asking how to place it in a broader context, pursuing the ideas....

It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.

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...

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.

[…] in a predatory capitalist economy, state intervention would be an absolute necessity to preserve human existence and to prevent the destruction of the physical environment […].

This Sarah Palin phenomenon is very curious. I think somebody watching us from Mars—they would think the country has gone insane.

It’s not radical Islam that worries the US — it’s independence

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the...

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the...

Thinking is a human feature. Will AI someday really think? That’s like asking if submarines swim. If you call it swimming then robots will think, yes.

It [predatory capitalism] is incapable of meeting human needs that can be expressed only in collective terms, and its concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to...