Psychology Quotes by Yuval Noah Harari

“What happens in the mind that doesn't happen in the brain?”

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Henceforth, attachment to ‘my house’ and separation from the neighbours became the psychological hallmark of a much more self-centred creature.”

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Humans are rarely satisfied with what they already have. The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction,…

— Yuval Noah Harari

Buddhism maintains that the common reaction of the human mind to pleasure and to achievement is not satisfaction; it's craving for more.

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammed would have been bewildered if you'd told them that in order to understand the human mind and…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“The settlers of Australia, or more accurately, its conquerors, didn’t just adapt, they transformed the Australian ecosystem beyond recognition.”

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“We won’t be able to grasp the full implications of novel technologies such as artificial intelligence if we don’t know what minds…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Consumerism has worked very hard, with the help of popular psychology (‘Just do it!’) to convince people that indulgence is good for…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“The mental renovations of the first Cognitive Revolution gave Homo sapiens access to the intersubjective realm and turned them into the rulers…

— Yuval Noah Harari

The widespread assumption is that somehow, the brain produces the mind; somehow millions of neurons fire signals at one another create or…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In the course catalogue of the psychology department at my own university, the first required course in the curriculum is ‘Introduction to…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Simultaneously, scientists have studied the mental states of people considered to be healthy and normative. However, most relevant researches have been conducted…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“We want the ability to re-engineer our bodies and minds in order, above all, to escape old age, death and misery, but…

— Yuval Noah Harari

Our bodies and minds evolved and were adapted for hundreds of thousands of years for tasks like climbing a tree and picking…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Ever more scholars see cultures as a kind of mental infection or parasite, with humans as its unwitting host. Organic parasites, such…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Cultural ideas live inside the minds of humans. They multiply and spread from one host to another, occasionally weakening the hosts and…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In the nineteenth century, scientists described brains and minds as if they were steam engines. Why steam engines? Because that was the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“The ideal elder may suffer from bodily ailments and weaknesses, but his mind is quick and sharp, and he has eighty years…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“When thousands of cars slowly edge their way through London, we call that a traffic jam, but it doesn’t create some great…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In all probability there is an infinite variety of mental states that no Sapiens, bat or dinosaur ever experienced in 4 billion…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In the twenty-first century we will create more powerful fictions and more totalitarian religions than in any previous era. With the help…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“We want the ability to re-engineer our bodies and minds in order, above all, to escape old age, death and misery, but…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“The experiment changed Sally’s life. In the following days she realised she has been through a ‘near-spiritual experience…what defined the experience was…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In the nineteenth century, scientists described brains and minds as if they were steam engines. Why steam engines? Because that was the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more. Humans are always on the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“In the twenty-first century it sounds childish to compare the human psyche to a steam engine. Today we know of a far…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“fact, however, the lesson is just the opposite. The story demonstrates that by humanising animals we usually underestimate animal cognition and ignore…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Just as the spectrums of light and sound are far broader than what we humans can see and hear, so the spectrum…

— Yuval Noah Harari