When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Within a few thousand years, virtually all of these giants vanished. Of the twenty-four Australian animal species weighing fifty kilograms or more,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“45,000 Sapiens settle Australia. Extinction of Australian megafauna. 30,000 Extinction of Neanderthals. 16,000 Sapiens settle America. Extinction of American megafauna.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The First Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the foragers, was followed by the Second Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Of course, if diprotodons had been the only large animal to disappear at this time, it might have been just a fluke.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“For similar reasons, archaic humans did not initiate any revolutions. As far as we can tell, changes in social patterns, the invention of new… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Today the main source of wealth is knowledge. And whereas you can conquer oil fields through war, you cannot acquire knowledge that way.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
I think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Whereas chimpanzees spend five hours a day chewing raw food, a single hour suffices for people eating cooked food. The advent of cooking enabled… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Whereas liberalism merged with the milder versions of nationalism to protect the unique experiences of each human community, evolutionary humanists such as Hitler identified… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Small children in affluent societies often dislike showering, and it takes them years of education and parental discipline to adopt this supposedly attractive custom.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Ever more scholars see cultures as a kind of mental infection or parasite, with humans as its unwitting host. Organic parasites, such as viruses,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Soviet Communism was a fanatical and missionary religion. A devout Communist could not be a Christian or a Buddhist, and was expected to spread… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot budge even a single… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“Yet what happens if the greedy shoemaker increases his profits by paying employees less and increasing their work hours? The standard answer is that… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
“A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share
