191 quotes
The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and bank notes is less than $6 trillion. More than 90% percent of all money - more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts - exists only on computer servers.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Humans, like many mammals, have hormonal and genetic mechanisms that help control procreation. In good times females reach puberty earlier, and their chances of getting pregnant are a bit higher. In bad times puberty is late and fertility decreases.
Sapiens (2014)
Scientists themselves are not always aware of the political, economic and religious interests that control the flow of money; many scientists do, in fact, act out of purely intellectual curiosity. Hovever, only rarely do scientists dictate the scientific agenda.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
From the dawn of agriculture until this very day, billions of humans armed with branches, swatters, shoes and poison sprays have waged rentless wars against diligent ants, furtive roaches, adventurous spiders and misguided beetles that constantly infiltrate the human domicile.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Wars are not a pub brawl. ...[A]n aggressive brute is often the worst choice to run a war.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
We could be in a situation when the richest person... is not a human being.
The Collapse of Truth (2025)
The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight kilograms in the early nineteenth century.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The whole question of "when will AI reach the same level... as human intelligence?" This is ridiculous. It's like asking, "When will airplanes finally be like birds?"
Next Phase of Intelligence (2026)
In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016)
Present-day Egyptians speak Arabic, think of themselves as Arabs, and identify... with the Arab Empire that conquered Egypt in the seventh century and crushed... repeated revolts...
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
This partial script was composed of ten signs, representing the numbers from 0 - 9. Confusingly, these signs were known as Arabic numerals even though they were first invented by the Hindus.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
According to the science of biology, people were not 'created'. They... evolved. And... not... to be 'equal'.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Intelligence is definitely not something that is directed towards amplifying happiness. I would also emphasize the huge, huge difference between intelligence and consciousness, which many people, certainly in the tech industry and in the AI industry, tend to miss.
You cannot run history in a laboratory and see... the social consequences of invent[ion].
Next Phase of Intelligence (2026)
The Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Paradoxically, genetic superiority (in terms of immunity) translated into social inferiority: precisely because Africans were fitter in tropical climates than Europeans!
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
For the aborigines of Australia, and to a lesser extent for the Maori of New Zealand, the Cook expedition was the beginning of a catastrophe from which they have never fully recovered.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that swept Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are... notorious. ...[T]hey disagreed about the nature of... [Christ's] love.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Money... is most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)