“It’s much the same dilemma that a future historian would face if he had to depict the social world of twenty-first-century teenagers… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
In order to survive in a very small tribe, you needed to know how to do lots of things for yourself: how… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“dawn of recorded history were pure, untouched by sin and unadulterated by other societies. But no culture since that dawn can reasonably… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“From a historical perspective, the spiritual journey is always tragic, for it is a lonely path fit for individuals rather than for… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“THE ANCIENT ROMANS were used to being defeated. Like the rulers of most of history’s great empires, they could lose battle after… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“This is one of the distinguishing marks of history as an academic discipline – the better you know a particular historical period,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Our late modern world prides itself on recognising, for the first time in history, the basic equality of all humans, yet it… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Studying history aims to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The history of science is replete with abandoned concepts and theories. For instance, early modern scientists who tried to account for the… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“This is one of the distinguishing marks of history as an academic discipline – the better you know a particular historical period,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures. Religions assert that our laws are… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The crucial importance of human expectations has far-reaching implications for understanding the history of happiness. If happiness depended only on objective conditions… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Such vicious circles can go on for centuries and even millennia, perpetuating an imagined hierarchy that sprang from a chance historical occurrence.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Do you think that history professors chat about the reasons for World War One when they meet for lunch, or that nuclear… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
Intelligence is the ability to solve problems, whereas consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love, and anger.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
My main ambition as a historian is to figure out what's really happening in the world, instead of the fictions that humans… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“We have reached a turning point in history in which major historical processes are partly caused by the decisions of nonhuman intelligence.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The most important impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has gradually changed the way humans think and view… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Though historians occasionally try their hand at prophecy (without notable success), the study of history aims above all to make us aware… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“There was nothing special about humans. Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling that their descendants would one day walk… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
As a historian, I'm sceptical about conspiracy theories because the world is far too complicated to be managed by a few billionaires… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“alongside seas and rivers rich in seafood and waterfowl, humans set up permanent fishing villages – the first permanent settlements in history,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Timeline of History Years Before the Present 13.5 billion Matter and energy appear. Beginning of physics. Atoms and molecules appear. Beginning of… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Throughout history, religions and ideologies did not sanctify life itself. They always sanctified something above or beyond earthly existence, and were consequently… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“Whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
