“People are willing to do such things when they trust the figments of their collective imagination. Trust is the raw material from… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Because money can convert, store and transport wealth easily and cheaply, it made a vital contribution to the appearance of complex commercial… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Whereas traditionally the family was the main matchmaker, today it’s the market that tailors our romantic and sexual preferences, and then lends… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“green monkey, for example, has been observed calling ‘Careful! A lion!’ when there was no lion around. This alarm conveniently frightened away… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Everyone always wants money because everyone else also always wants money, which means you can exchange money for whatever you want or… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Fiction isn't bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Money is not coins and banknotes. Money is anything that people are willing to use in order to represent systematically the value… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us. How come we find ourselves sacrificing our… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Family and community seem to have more impact on our happiness than money and health. People with strong families who live in… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“For thousands of years, philosophers, thinkers and prophets have besmirched money and called it the root of all evil. Be that as… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
We can suspend disbelief about Harry Potter, and we do the same thing with God, and we do the same thing with… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
If we are allowed to do experiments on monkeys because we are superior to them in a certain way, then someone who… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“In the Middle Ages the outbreak of a plague caused people to raise their eyes towards heaven, and pray to God to… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“the hierarchy of rich and poor – which mandates that rich people live in separate and more luxurious neighbourhoods, study in separate… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“There is nothing special about lies. Green monkeys and chimpanzees can lie. A green monkey, for example, has been observed calling ‘Careful!… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“This isn’t a lie. It’s imagination. Like money, limited liability companies and human rights, nations and consumer tribes are inter-subjective realities. They… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Even more money is transferred to the bank accounts of fashion designers, gym managers, dieticians, cosmeticians and plastic surgeons, who help us… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Money is thus a universal medium of exchange that enables people to convert almost everything into almost anything else.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.” — 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
