“Like a government diverting money from defense to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Osama Bin Laden, for all his hatred of American culture, American religion and American politics, was very fond of American dollars.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The only sure way to stop global warming is to stop economic growth, which no government is willing to do.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Terrorism is both a global political problem and an internal psychological mechanism.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“politicians.’ It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering. Priests discovered this principle… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Without government planning, economic resources and scientific research, individuals will not get far in their quest for happiness.” — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“country devoid of natural resources, but which enjoys peace, a fair judicial system and a free government is likely to receive a… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, it seemed that the liberal story had won.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Present-day democratic structures just cannot collect and process the relevant data fast enough, and most voters don’t understand biology and cybernetics well… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“If Marx came back to life today, he would probably urge his few remaining disciples to devote less time to reading Das… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“There are no longer natural famines in the world; there are only political famines. If people in Syria, Sudan or Somalia starve… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“1. Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing? 2. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness? 3.… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Just as human politicians on election campaigns go around shaking hands and kissing babies, so aspirants to the top position in a… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
The old 20th-century political model of Left vs. Right is now basically irrelevant, and the real divide today is between global and… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Mass famines still strike some areas from time to time, but they are exceptional, and they are almost always caused by human… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“We take this reality for granted, thinking it is natural, inevitable and immutable. We forget that our world was created by an… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“How, then, do terrorists manage to dominate the headlines and change the political situation throughout the world? By provoking their enemies to… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“What kind of cultures, societies and political structures would have emerged in a world where several different human species coexisted? How, for… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The individual will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within. Today corporations and governments pay homage to my… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“When Hitler appealed to the German voters and asked for their trust, he could muster only one argument in his favour: his… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“As the twenty-first century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing ground. More and more people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The slave trade was not controlled by any state or government. It was a purely economic enterprise, organised and financed by the… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The stress of farming had far-reaching consequences. It was the foundation of large-scale political and social systems. Sadly, the diligent peasants almost… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Consequently, in 1958 the Chinese government was informed that annual grain production was 50 per cent more than it actually was. Believing… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Capitalism began as a theory about how the economy functions. It was both descriptive and prescriptive – it offered an account of… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Liberal politics is based on the idea that the voters know best, and there is no need for Big Brother to tell… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Such racist theories, prominent and respectable for many decades, have become anathema among scientists and politicians alike. People continue to conduct a… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
In the 1990s and 2000s, the liberal story shaped not only the foreign policy of the United States and its allies, but… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Precisely because technology is now moving so fast, and parliaments and dictators alike are overwhelmed by data they cannot process quickly enough,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“There are schools of thought and political movements that seek to purge human culture of imperialism, leaving behind what they claim is… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Heavy taxation means that a large part of all available capital accumulated in one place – the state coffers – and consequently… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
For thousands of years, until about 1850, you see humans accumulating more and more power by the invention of new technologies and… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“concepts of pollution and purity have played a leading role in enforcing social and political divisions and have been exploited by numerous… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Precisely because technology is now moving so fast, and parliaments and dictators alike are overwhelmed by data they cannot process quickly enough,… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“the ethical and political ideas of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. However, once the heretical scientific insights are translated into everyday technology, routine… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“The Portuguese government – which had little desire to accept any of these refugees – sent agents to escort the disobedient consul… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“In the late 1830s the Chinese government issued a ban on drug trafficking, but British drug merchants simply ignored the law. Chinese… — Yuval Noah Harari Copy Share Image
“Precisely because technology is now moving so fast, and parliaments and dictators alike are overwhelmed by data they cannot process quickly enough,… — 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
