Yuval Noah Harari Quotes - 9quotes.com

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Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
For many centuries, even thousands of years, patriotism worked quite well. Of course, it led to wars an so forth, but we shouldn't focus too much on the bad.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don't have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it's climate change or whether it's technological disruption.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
All the major problems of the world today are global in essence, and they cannot be solved unless through some kind of global cooperation. It's not just climate change, which is, like, the most obvious example people give. I think more in terms of technological disruption.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Nothing should be taken for granted, even if everybody believes it.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
The notion of superhumans is using bioengineering and artificial intelligence to upgrade human abilities. If they use the power to change themselves, to change their own minds, their own desires, then we have no idea what they will want to do.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
In Judaism or Christianity and so forth, you invent rules that don't exist anywhere except in your imagination. You spend your life trying to gain points and to avoid all kinds of things that detract from your points. And if by the time you die you gather enough points, then you pass on to the next level, in Heaven.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
For thousands of years, we have gained the power to control the world outside us but not to control the world inside. You could stop a river from flowing, but you could not stop your body from becoming old. You could kill mosquitoes, but you could not kill annoying thoughts buzzing inside your head.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Ignorance is not too dangerous. If you combine it with power, then this is a toxic mix.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Humans are extremely good in acquiring new power, but they are not very good in translating this power into greater happiness, which is why we are far more powerful than ever before but we don't seem to be much happier.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Until about 30,000 years ago, there were at least five other species of humans on the planet. Homo Sapiens, our ancestors, lived mainly in East Africa, and you had the Neanderthal in Europe, Homo Erectus in part of Asia, and so forth.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
I try to be a realist and not a pessimist or an optimist.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
We are living in a global world - but most schools and books still tell us only parochial histories of one particular country or culture. The truth is that there are no longer any independent countries in the world.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
The basic human reaction to pleasure is not satisfaction, but rather craving for more. Hence, no matter what we achieve, it only increases our craving, not our satisfaction.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Intelligence is the ability to solve problems, whereas consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love, and anger. Throughout history, intelligence always went hand in hand with consciousness.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon, this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives and to reinvent themselves repeatedly.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
The truly unique trait of 'Sapiens' is our ability to create and believe fiction. All other animals use their communication system to describe reality. We use our communication system to create new realities. Of course, not all fictions are shared by all humans, but at least one has become universal in our world, and this is money.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Dollar bills have absolutely no value except in our collective imagination, but everybody believes in the dollar bill.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Humans have an amazing capacity to believe in contradictory things. For example, to believe in an omnipotent and benevolent God but somehow excuse Him from all the suffering in the world. Or our ability to believe from the standpoint of law that humans are equal and have free will and from biology that humans are just organic machines.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
We are probably one of the last generations of Homo sapiens.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Humans have two kinds of abilities: physical and cognitive.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Censorship no longer works by hiding information from you; censorship works by flooding you with immense amounts of misinformation, of irrelevant information, of funny cat videos, until you're just unable to focus.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
As a historian, I'm sceptical about conspiracy theories because the world is far too complicated to be managed by a few billionaires drinking scotch behind some closed doors. But I do think that the voters are correct in sensing that they're really losing power. And in reaction, they give the system an angry kick.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
It's very, very difficult to reinvent yourself when you're 40 or 50, whether you are a taxi driver who now needs to become a web designer, or anything else. It just becomes more difficult and more scary.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Homo sapiens, you and me, we are basically the same as people 10,000 years ago. The next revolution will change that.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Many people in their teens wonder about these big questions - what's the meaning of life, what are we doing here - then somewhere in their 20s, they seem to say, 'I'll just get married. I'll just have kids. I'll get back to that later.' But they never do. For me, it kept boiling.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
I'm a historian. I really like the past. But most people seem far more interested in what you can tell them about the future.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested in big questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? But the chances to discuss philosophy were quite thin on the ground.
Written by Yuval Noah Harari

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