“Diogenes, the Greek philosopher who founded the Cynical school, lived in a barrel.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
The feelings of the individual are the prime authority in ethics. 'If it feels good, do it' is the basic ethical ideal… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“A crucial part of the modern capitalist economy was the emergence of a new ethic, according to which profits ought to be… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The typical premodern ruler gave money to priests, philosophers and poets in the hope that they would legitimise his rule and maintain… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Philosophers, priests and poets have brooded over the nature of happiness for millennia, and many have concluded that social, ethical and spiritual… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested 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
“At the end of the eighteenth century the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham declared that the supreme good is ‘the greatest happiness of… — 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
“Doubting free will is not just a philosophical exercise. It has practical implications. If organisms indeed lack free will, it implies we… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the… — 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
