Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

want to gauge group loyalty, requiring people to believe an absurdity is a far better test than asking them to believe the truth.

They can nevertheless play the game with complete strangers because they have all learned an identical set of ideas about basketball. These ideas are entirely imaginary, but if everyone shares them, we can all play the game. The same applies, on a larger scale, to kingdoms, churches, and trade networks,

The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history. There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging.5

because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something.

When the car replaced the horse-drawn carriage, we didn't upgrade the horses – we retired them. Perhaps it is time to do the same with Homo sapiens.

Most top predators of the planet are majestic creatures. Millions of years of dominion have filled them with self-confidence. Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator.

Standardisation was a boon to emperors.

This network of artificial instincts is called 'culture'.

The world of thought, belief and feeling is by definition far more difficult to decipher.

Followers of every religion are convinced that theirs alone is true. Perhaps the followers of one religion are correct.

The sacrifice is not just a way to convince your lover that you are serious; it is also a way to convince yourself that you are really in love. Why do you think women ask their lovers for diamond rings? Once the lover makes such a huge financial sacrifice, he must convince himself that it was for a worthy cause.

As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how. A

On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations.

money isn't a material reality – it is a psychological construct.

Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot questions.

That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to us like, well, a no-brainer. We are so enamoured of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better. But if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats who could do calculus, and frogs would by now have launched their own space programme. Why are giant brains so rare in the animal kingdom?

Liberalism has a particularly confused notion of 'free will'. Humans obviously have a will, they have desires, and they are sometimes free to fulfil their desires. If by 'free will' you mean the freedom to do what you desire - then yes, humans have free will. But if by 'free will' you mean the freedom to choose what to desire - then no, humans have no free will.

cuando un terrateniente, un tejedor o un zapatero obtiene mayores beneficios de los que necesita para mantener a su familia, utiliza el excedente para emplear a más ayudantes, con el fin de aumentar todavía más sus beneficios. Cuantos más beneficios obtenga, más ayudantes podrá emplear. De ahí se sigue que un aumento en los beneficios de los empresarios privados es la base del aumento de la riqueza y la prosperidad colectivas.

An application called Deadline goes a step further, informing you how many years of life you have left, given your current habits.

The story of the luxury trap carries with it an important lesson. Humanity's search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted.

Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural.

Los humanos pensamos más en relatos que en hechos, números o ecuaciones, y cuanto más sencillo es el relato, mejor.

One of the most common uses of early stone tools was to crack open bones in order to get to the marrow.

Leave all your illusions behind. They are very heavy.