Top 100 Yuval Quotes
#1. countless Americans of all parties and no party are practical, experienced experts in putting family, faith, and community first and helping one another in hard times. A
Yuval Levin
#2. the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians.
Yuval Noah Harari
#3. This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.
Yuval Noah Harari
#4. Due to their close cooperation with science, these empires wielded so much power and changed the world to such an extent that perhaps they cannot be simply labelled as good or evil. They created the world as we know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge them.
Yuval Noah Harari
#6. Eduardo Kac, a Brazilian bio-artist, decided in 2000 to create a new work of art: a fluorescent green rabbit.
Yuval Noah Harari
#8. However, just as the gap between religion and science is narrower than we commonly think, so the gap between religion and spirituality is much wider. Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey.
Yuval Noah Harari
#9. How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.
Yuval Noah Harari
#11. Few of these forecasts came true. On the other hand, nobody foresaw the Internet.
Yuval Noah Harari
#13. Banks and governments print money, but ultimately, it is the scientists who foot the bill.
Yuval Noah Harari
#14. more than 25 billion chickens. And they are all over the globe. The domesticated chicken is the most widespread fowl ever. Following Homo sapiens, domesticated
Yuval Noah Harari
#15. ...any attempt to define the characteristics of modern society is akin to defining the color of a chameleon.
Yuval Noah Harari
#16. We refuse unfair offers because people who meekly accepted unfair offers didn't survive in the Stone Age. Observations
Yuval Noah Harari
#18. money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
Yuval Noah Harari
#19. A new branch of mathematics was developed over the last 200 years to deal with the more complex aspects of reality: statistics.
Yuval Noah Harari
#21. happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.
Yuval Noah Harari
#22. The most important impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has gradually changed the way humans think and view the world. Free association and holistic thought have given way to compartmentalisation and bureaucracy. The
Yuval Noah Harari
#23. Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They
Yuval Noah Harari
#24. Two million years ago, genetic mutations resulted in the appearance of a new human species called Homo erectus.
Yuval Noah Harari
#25. The real test of 'knowledge' is not whether it is true, but whether it empowers us. Scientists usually assume that no theory is 100 per cent correct. Consequently, truth is a poor test for knowledge. The real test is utility. A theory that enables us to do new things constitutes knowledge. Over
Yuval Noah Harari
#26. Intelligent design becomes the basic principle of life? Homo sapiens is replaced by superhumans?
Yuval Noah Harari
#27. It is a function of entrenched, intergenerational poverty that isolates too many lower-income Americans from even middle-class economic, cultural, and social opportunities and norms.
Yuval Levin
#28. An algorithm is a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions. An algorithm isn't a particular calculation, but the method followed when making the calculation.
Yuval Noah Harari
#29. Just as an all-black workforce might be controlled by an all-white management, why couldn't an all-male soldiery be controlled by an all-female or at least partly female government?
Yuval Noah Harari
#30. In contrast, upgrading the healthy is an elitist project, because it rejects the idea of a universal standard applicable to all and seeks to give some individuals an edge over others. People want superior memories, above-average intelligence and first-class sexual abilities.
Yuval Noah Harari
#31. While he originally sang about 'a coloured boy named Johnny B. Goode', under pressure from white-owned radio stations Berry changed the lyrics to 'a country boy named Johnny B. Goode'. As
Yuval Noah Harari
#32. Before the Agricultural Revolution, the human population of the entire planet was smaller than that of today's Cairo.
Yuval Noah Harari
#33. 70,000 The Cognitive Revolution. Emergence of fictive language. Beginning of history. Sapiens spread out of Africa.
Yuval Noah Harari
#34. We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history's choices are not made for the benefit of humans.
Yuval Noah Harari
#35. The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago.
Yuval Noah Harari
#36. The amount of energy stored in all the fossil fuel on earth is negligible compared to the amount that the sun dispenses every day, free of charge.
Yuval Noah Harari
#37. That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously. (p.175)
Yuval Noah Harari
#38. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
Yuval Noah Harari
#39. DNA is not an autocrat. Animal behaviour is also influenced by environmental factors and individual quirks.
Yuval Noah Harari
#40. Behind the meteoric rise of both science and empire lurks one particularly important force: capitalism. Were
Yuval Noah Harari
#41. We normally think that theist religions sanctified the great gods. We tend to forget that they sanctified humans, too. Hitherto Homo sapiens had been just one actor in a cast of thousands. In the new theist drama, Sapiens became the central hero around whom the entire universe revolved.
Yuval Noah Harari
#42. suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one's own mind.
Yuval Noah Harari
#43. The poor are more isolated - economically, culturally, and socially - than they used to be in America.
Yuval Levin
#44. There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.
Yuval Noah Harari
#45. Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa. Think
Yuval Noah Harari
#46. Romantic literature often presents the individual as somebody caught in a struggle against the state and the market. Nothing
Yuval Noah Harari
#47. Superiors got all the good things in life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they complained.
Yuval Noah Harari
#48. Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.
Yuval Noah Harari
#50. Why would any sane person lower his or her standard of living just to multiply the number of copies of the Homo sapiens genome? Nobody agreed to this deal: the Agricultural Revolution was a trap.
Yuval Noah Harari
#51. Many kingdoms and empires were in truth little more than large protection rackets. The king was the capo di tutti capi who collected protection money, and in return made sure that neighbouring crime syndicates and local small fry did not harm those under his protection. He did little else.
Yuval Noah Harari
#53. Today, humankind is driving many species into extinction and might even annihilate itself.
Yuval Noah Harari
#54. The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies.
Yuval Noah Harari
#55. Science can explain what exists in the world, how things work, and what might be in the future. By definition, it has no pretensions to knowing what should be in the future. Only religions and ideologies seek to answer such questions.
Yuval Noah Harari
#56. for the vast majority of life's necessities you rely blindly on the help of other experts, whose own knowledge is also limited to a tiny field of expertise. The
Yuval Noah Harari
#57. it will have to overcome a social vision that is by now deeply rooted and powerfully dominant among liberals: the idea that the only genuine liberty is individual liberty, and that the only legitimate authority is the authority of the national government. The
Yuval Levin
#58. Consumerism sees the consumption of ever more products and services as a positive thing. It encourages people to treat themselves, spoil themselves, and even kill themselves slowly by overconsumption. Frugality is a disease to be cured.
Yuval Noah Harari
#59. In the past, censorship worked by blocking the flow of information. In the 21st century, censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. People just don't know what to pay attention to, and they often spend their time investigating and debating side issues.
Yuval Noah Harari
#60. Kahneman found that when counting moments of joy and moments of drudgery, bringing up a child turns out to be a rather unpleasant affair.
Yuval Noah Harari
#61. Neanderthals usually hunted alone or in small groups. Sapiens, on the other hand, developed techniques that relied on cooperation between many dozens of individuals, and perhaps even between different bands.
Yuval Noah Harari
#62. Hence paradoxically, as we accumulate more data and increase our computing power, events become wilder and more unexpected.
Yuval Noah Harari
#63. Just like equality, rights and limited liability companies, liberty is something that people invented and that exists only in their imagination. From
Yuval Noah Harari
#65. Henceforth, people became obsessed with the idea that machines and engines could be used to convert one type of energy into another.
Yuval Noah Harari
#66. Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm; and conducting groundbreaking lab experiments is more interesting than receiving praise and prizes.
Yuval Noah Harari
#67. social Left is a minority, too, and it is a minority aspiring to dominate our institutions at a time when those institutions are particularly weak and diffuse.
Yuval Levin
#68. Billions of people, including many scientists, continue to use religious scripture as a source of authority, but these texts are no longer a source of creativity.
Yuval Noah Harari
#69. The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history.
Yuval Noah Harari
#70. The second is that the American people tend to oppose whoever they see as the aggressor in the Culture Wars - whoever they see as trying to intrusively impose their values on other people and bullying everyone who disagrees.
Yuval Levin
#71. grave goods by themselves. 9. Hunter-gatherers made these handprints about 9,000 years ago in the 'Hands Cave', in Argentina. It looks as if these long-dead hands are reaching towards us from within the rock. This is one of the most moving relics of the ancient forager
Yuval Noah Harari
#72. If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When
Yuval Noah Harari
#73. The average ancient forager could turn a flint stone into a spear point within minutes.
Yuval Noah Harari
#74. Modern business-people and lawyers are, in fact, powerful sorcerers. The principal difference between them and tribal shamans is that modern lawyers tell far stranger tales.
Yuval Noah Harari
#75. European imperialists set out to distant shores in the hope of obtaining new knowledge along with new territories.
Yuval Noah Harari
#77. Throughout history most human societies were so busy with local conflicts and neighbourhood quarrels that they never considered exploring and conquering distant lands.
Yuval Noah Harari
#78. Woody Allen, who has made a fabulous career out of the fear of death, was once asked if he hoped to live on for ever through the silver screen. Allen answered that 'I'd rather live on in my apartment.
Yuval Noah Harari
#79. Today in the United States, only 2 per cent of the population makes a living from agriculture, yet this 2 per cent produces enough not only to feed the entire US population, but also to export surpluses to the rest of the world.9
Yuval Noah Harari
#80. We no longer say, 'It's in their blood.' We say, 'It's in their culture.' Thus
Yuval Noah Harari
#81. the alpha male wins his position by building a stable coalition with other males and females, not through mindless violence. In
Yuval Noah Harari
#82. Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.
Yuval Noah Harari
#83. scientists took a run-of-the-mill white rabbit embryo, implanted in its DNA a gene taken from a green fluorescent jellyfish,
Yuval Noah Harari
#84. In order to function, the people who operate such a system of drawers must be reprogrammed to stop thinking as humans and to start thinking as clerks and accountants.
Yuval Noah Harari
#85. They argue for a reverse correlation between human capabilities and happiness. Power
Yuval Noah Harari
#86. Many call this process 'the destruction of nature.' But it's not really destruction, it's change. Nature cannot be destroyed.
Yuval Noah Harari
#87. The heated debates about Homo sapiens' 'natural way of life' miss the main point. Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasn't been a single natural way of life for Sapiens. There are only cultural choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities.
Yuval Noah Harari
#88. Revolutions are, by definition, unpredictable. A predictable revolution never erupts. Why
Yuval Noah Harari
#89. Another is that the findings demonstrate that happiness is not the surplus of pleasant over unpleasant moments. Rather,
Yuval Noah Harari
#90. in many societies more people are in danger of dying from obesity than from starvation.
Yuval Noah Harari
#91. Most Westerners today believe in individualism. They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other people think of him or her.
Yuval Noah Harari
#92. In our time, no less than any other, traditionalists should live out their faiths and their ways in the world, confident that their instruction and example will make that world better and that people will be drawn to the spark.
Yuval Levin
#93. Without such knowledge, it is unlikely that a ridiculously small number of Britons could have succeeded in governing, oppressing and exploiting so many hundreds of millions of Indians for two centuries. Throughout
Yuval Noah Harari
#94. most importantly, this prediction is less of a prophecy and more a way of discussing our present choices. If the discussion makes us choose differently, so that the prediction is proven wrong, all the better. What's the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything?
Yuval Noah Harari
#95. The wholesome and varied diet, the relatively short working week, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many experts to define pre-agricultural forager societies as 'the original affluent societies'.
Yuval Noah Harari
#96. Once Google, Facebook and other algorithms become all-knowing oracles, they may well evolve into agents and finally into sovereigns.
Yuval Noah Harari
#97. we members of one of its final generations should devote some time to answering one last question:
Yuval Noah Harari
#98. We stand poised on the brink of becoming true cyborgs, of having inorganic features that are inseparable from our bodies, features that modify our abilities, desires, personalities and identities.
Yuval Noah Harari
#99. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. People
Yuval Noah Harari
#100. If a religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet Communism was no less a religion than Islam.
Yuval Noah Harari
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