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
“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
“If the curtain is indeed about to drop on Sapiens history, we members of one of its final generations should devote some… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Ours is the first time in history that the world is dominated by a peace-loving elite – politicians, business people, intellectuals and… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“When Kushim’s neighbours called out to him, they might really have shouted ‘Kushim!’ It is telling that the first recorded name in… — 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
“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
“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
“The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest… — 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
“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
“Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“European imperialism was entirely unlike all other imperial projects in history. Previous seekers of empire tended to assume that they already understood… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological basis – they are nothing but the perpetuation of chance events supported by myths.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations,… — 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
“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
“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
“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
