“The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.”

A tremendous amount of the entrepreneurial initiative, if you want to call it that, comes from the dynamic state sector on which most of the economy relies to socialize costs and risks and privatize eventual profit. And that’s achieved by, if you like, advertising.

Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.

I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can’t explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something?

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia.

I would appear on Fox News more easily than I would NPR.

Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment.

The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

It is also a course of action that strikes a blow against the regime of international order, but which offers the weak at least some protection from predatory states.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.

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

I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog.

It is easier to go to the Internet than to go to the library, undoubtedly. But the shift from no libraries to the existence of libraries was a much greater shift than what we’ve seen with the Internet’s development.

Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.

It’s dangerous when people are willing to give up their privacy.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‘least advanced’ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us.

It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.

There are bigger problems in the world than those of love despite this I can’t fathom why I think I may die if i can’t have you.

There’s no room for doubts when you have dreams as big as yours.

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.

Big or small, I appreciate everything that’s done for me.

We live in a strange world, where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things. Where a football game or a film gala gets more media attention than the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

If your heart was as big as your mouth you’d be real.