191 quotes
the Nazis believed that humankind is not something universal or eternal, but rather a mutable species that can evolve or degenerate. Man can evolve into superman, or can degenerate into subhuman.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Zoroastrians saw the world as a cosmic battle between the good... Ahura Mazda and the evil... Angra Mainyu.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
You cannot test what will be the geopolitical... or cultural implications of a steam engine in a laboratory. It's the same with AI.
Next Phase of Intelligence (2026)
In dictatorships there is no... self-correcting mechanism.
The Collapse of Truth (2025)
Some human species may have made occasional use of fire as early as 800,000 years ago. By about 300,000 years ago, Homo erctus, Neanderthals and the forefathers of Homo sapiens were using fire on a daily basis.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Animism is not a specific religion. It is a generic name for thousands of very different religions, cults and beliefs. What makes all of them 'animist' is this common approach to the world and man's place in it.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Consumerism and nationalism work extra hours to make us imagine that millions of strangers belong to the same community as ourselves, that we all have a common past, common interest, and a common future. This isn't a lie. It's imagination.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The fate of farm animals is not an ethical side issue. It concerns the majority of Earth's large creatures: tens of billions of sentient beings, each with a complex world of sensations and emotions, but who live and die as cogs in an industrial production line.
Introduction to Animal Liberation (2015)
The era of personalised medicine... that matches treatment to DNA... has begun.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Our... green and blue planet is becoming... concrete and plastic...
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
California['s] wealth was initially built on gold mines. But today it is... silicon and celluloid ― Silicon Valley and the celluloid hills of Hollywood.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Gnostics and Manichaeans argued... the good god created the spirit and soul.., matter and bodies are... of the evil god. Man... serves as a battleground...
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The ancient Chinese believed that the goddess Nü wa created humans from earth, she kneaded aristocrats from fine yellow soil, whereas commoners were formed from brown mud.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
In the conventional picture, pioneers first built a village, and when it prospered, they set up a temple... But Göbekli Tepe suggests... the temple may have been built first...
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The only god that the Romans long refused to tolerate was the monotheistic... evangelising god of the Christians.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Unless we... construct institutions that invest in truth, we'll be flooded by fiction.., illusion.., delusion and junk information.
The Collapse of Truth (2025)
The global centre of power shifted to Europe only between 1750 and 1850, when Europeans... in a series of wars... conquered large parts of Asia.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
The most important military invention in the history of China was gunpowder... invented accidentally, by Daoist alchemists searching for the elixir of life.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
In 1775 Asia accounted for 80 per cent of the world economy. The combined economies of India and China alone represented two-thirds of global production. In comparison, Europe was an economic dwarf.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
In Hindu polytheism, a single principle, Atman, controls the myriad gods and spirits, humankind, and the biological and physical world. Atman is the central essence or soul of the... universe.., of every individual and every phenomenon.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)