diff --git a/README.dev.md b/README.dev.md
index 3d8e148415..eaff414a6f 100644
--- a/README.dev.md
+++ b/README.dev.md
@@ -291,7 +291,7 @@ Finally continue with the All Systems instructions below.
 ### All Systems:
 
 ```
-pip install -r requirements.txt
+pip install --no-deps -r requirements.txt
 ./tools/install-phantomjs
 ./tools/download-zxcvbn
 ./tools/emoji_dump/build_emoji
diff --git a/provision.py b/provision.py
index eec66c09c7..d1c2600e05 100644
--- a/provision.py
+++ b/provision.py
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ def main():
     activate_this = os.path.join(VENV_PATH, "bin", "activate_this.py")
     execfile(activate_this, dict(__file__=activate_this))
 
-    run(["pip", "install", "--requirement",
+    run(["pip", "install", "--no-deps", "--requirement",
          os.path.join(ZULIP_PATH, "requirements.txt")])
 
     run(["sudo", "cp", REPO_STOPWORDS_PATH, TSEARCH_STOPWORDS_PATH])