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

born 1976 Israel

← All quotes by Yuval Noah Harari

158 quotes

Anyone who has read a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn knows how Communism's egalitarian ideal produced brutal tyrannies that tried to control every aspect of life.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Religion can thus be defined as a system of human laws that is founded on a belief in superhuman laws.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Presidents and generals may not understand nuclear physics, but they have a good grasp of what nuclear bombs can do.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

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

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Christian success served as a model for another monotheist religion and that appeared in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century - Islam.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Cultivating wheat much more food per unit of territory, and thereby enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus - 'we do not know'.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Religious holidays such as Christmas have become shopping festivals.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

According to the basic evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction, wheat has become one of the most successful plants in the history of the earth.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Throughout history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives, just so that people will say, 'He is a real man!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Revolutions are, by definition unpredictable. A predictable revolution never erupts.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

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.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

To say that a husband 'raped' his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own wallet.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The extinction of the Australian Megafauna was probably the first significant mark Homo sapiens left on our planet.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

The willingness to admit ignorance has made modern science more dynamic, supple and inquisitive than any previous tradition of knowledge.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Obesity is a double victory for consumerism. Instead of eating little, which will lead to economic contraction, people eat too much and then buy diet products—contributing to economic growth twice over.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Wars are not a pub brawl. They are complex projects that require an extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and appeasement.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Capital consists of money, goods and resources that are invested in production. Wealth, on the other hand, is buried in the ground or wasted on unproductive activities.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)

Fishing villages might have appeared on the coasts of Indonesian islands as early as 45,000 years ago.

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.