Skip to content

Quotes from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari

born 1976 Israel

← All quotes by Yuval Noah Harari

158 quotes

Worldwide, wheat covers about 2.25 million square kilometres of the globe's surface, almost ten times the size of Britain.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

A new branch of mathematics was developed over the last 200 years to deal with the more complex aspect of reality: statistics.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

It may well be that when Sapines encountered Neanderthals, the result was the first and most significant ethnic-cleansing campaign in history.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The domesticated chicken is the most widespread fowl ever.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

But when particularly complex societies began to appear in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, a completely new type of information became vital - numbers.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The journey of the first humans to Australia is one of the most important events in history, at least as important as Columbus' journey to America or Apollo 11 expedition to the moon.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The settlers of Australia, or more accurately, its conquerors, didn't just adapt. They transformed the Australian ecosystem beyond recognition.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

People everywhere have divided themselves into men and women. And almost everywhere men have got the better deal, at least since the Agricultural Revolution.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Money is accordingly, a system of mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: money is most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

International wars became rare only after 1945, largely thanks to the new threat of nuclear annihilation.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The undisputed monarch of all science was theology.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

When sputnik and Apollo 11 fired the imagination of the world, everyone began predicting that by the end of the century, people would be living in space colonies on Mars and Pluto. Few of these forecasts came true. On the other hand, nobody foresaw the Internet.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

It (Gossip) comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for the very purpose.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

When humans domesticated fire, they gained control of an obedient and potentially limitless force.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

In our time, 'imperialist' ranks second only to 'fascist' in the lexicon of political swear words.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

In modern society, currency notes usually display religious images, revered ancestors and corporate totems.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Like Buddhism, Communists believed in a superhuman order of natural and immutable laws that should guide human actions.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Yuval Noah Harari (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.