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Sage | Source | Quote |
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Yuval Harari | Sapiens | a dramatic increase in the collective power and ostensible success of our species went hand in hand with much individual suffering... This discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | 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. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | When Alexander the Great once visited Diogenes as he was relaxing in the sun and asked if there were anything he might do for him, the Cynic answered the all-powerful conqueror, 'Yes, there is something you can do for me. Please move a little to the side. You are blocking the sunlight.' |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | [Capitalist–consumerism] is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do... most people today successfully live up to this ideal... the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Consistency is the playground of dull minds. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Biology enables, Culture forbids. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | The romantic contrast between modern industry that 'destroys nature' and our ancestors who 'lived in harmony with nature' is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | 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 Harari | Sapiens | The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Each year the US population spends more money on diets than the amount needed to feed all the hungry people in the rest of the world. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | In 2012 about 56 million people died throughout the world; 620,000 of them died due to human violence (war killed 120,000 people, and crime killed another 500,000). In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes. Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder. |
Yuval Harari | Sapiens | Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night. |