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Famous Yuval Noah Harari Quotes

“As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meanings medieval people found in their lives were no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist and capitalist meanings modern people find. The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she increases the store of human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is meaningful because he fights to defend his homeland, and the entrepreneur who finds meaning in building a new company are no less delusional than their medieval counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, going on a crusade or building a new cathedral. So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction. This is quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?”

LifeHappinessPurposeMeaningDelusions
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“Going further back, have the seventy or so turbulent millennia since the Cognitive Revolution made the world a better place to live? Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 30,000 years ago left her handprint on a wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry?”

HappinessProgress
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“I never react to events in the outside world; I always react to the sensations in my own body. (...) Even when we think we react to what another person has done, to President Trump's latest tweet, or to a distant childhood memory, the truth is we always react to our immediate bodily sensations. If we are outraged that somebody insulted our nation or our god, what makes the insult unbearable is the burning sensations in the pit of our stomach and the band of pain that grips our heart. Our nation feels nothing, but our body really hurts.”

BodyPainScienceSensationsOutrageHarari
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“Gautama erkannte, dass jede unserer Erfahrungen unser Begehren weckt, und dass dieses Begehren neue Unzufriedenheit schürt. Wenn wir eine angenehme Erfahrung machen, wollen wir, dass diese Erfahrung nie endet, sondern im Gegenteil immer intensiver wird. Und wenn wir eine unangenehme Erfahrung machen, dann wollen wir, dass diese Erfahrung aufhört. Daher ist unser Geist immer unzufrieden und rastlos. [...] Gautama erkannte jedoch, dass es eine Möglichkeit gibt, diesem Teufelskreis zu entkommen. Wenn wir eine Erfahrung - sei sie angenehm oder unangenehm - einfach als das nehmen, was sie ist, dann verursacht sie kein Leid. Wenn wir Trauer empfinden, ohne ein Ende dieses Zustands herbeizusehnen, dann können wir diese Trauer spüren, ohne unter ihr zu leiden. Und wenn wir Freude empfinden, ohne uns nach immer mehr und immer intensiverer Freude zu sehnen, dann können wir diese Freude erleben, ohne dabei unseren inneren Frieden zu verlieren.”

BuddhaTrauerFreudeBuddhismusErfahrungenBegehrenGautamaInnerer Frieden
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“Seventy thousand years ago the Cognitive Revolution transformed the Sapiens mind, thereby turning an insignificant African ape into the ruler of the world. The improved Sapiens minds suddenly had access to the vast intersubjective realm, which enabled us to create gods and corporations, to build cities and empires, to invent writing and money, and eventually to split the atom and reach the moon. As far as we know, this earth-shattering revolution resulted from a few small changes in the Sapiens DNA, and a slight rewiring of the Sapiens brain. If so, says techno-humanism, maybe a few additional changes to our genome and another rewiring of our brain will suffice for launching a second cognitive revolution. The mental renovations of the first Cognitive Revolution gave Homo sapiens access to the intersubjective realm and turned us into the rulers of the planet; a second cognitive revolution might give Homo deus access to unimaginable new realms and turn us into the lords of the galaxy.”

Homo DeusCognitive RevolutionTechno Humanism
Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“Hoje, os grandes ativos económicos consistem em conhecimentos tecnológicos e institucionais, e não em searas, minas, nem sequer poços de petróleo, e não é possível conquistar conhecimento através da guerra. (…) As guerras nucleares e a ciberguerra, por seu lado, são tecnologias de grandes danos e poucos lucros. Podemos usar essas ferramentas para destruir países inteiros, mas não para construir impérios lucrativos.”

GuerraEconomiaTecnologiaYuval Noah Harari
Book:21 lições para o século 21
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“La modernidad, en cambio, se basa en la firme creencia de que el crecimiento económico no solo es posible, sino que es absolutamente esencial. Las oraciones, las buenas obras y la meditación pueden ser reconfortantes e inspiradoras, pero problemas tales como el hambre, la peste y la guerra solo pueden resolverse por medio del crecimiento.”

GuerraHambreModernidadPesteCrecimiento Económico
Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“In the coming decades, it is likely that we will see more Internet-like revolutions, in which technology steals a march on politics. Artificial intelligence and biotechnology might soon overhaul our societies and economies – and our bodies and minds too – but they are hardly a blip on our political radar. Our current democratic structures just cannot collect and process the relevant data fast enough, and most voters don’t understand biology and cybernetics well enough to form any pertinent opinions. Hence traditional democratic politics loses control of events, and fails to provide us with meaningful visions for the future. That doesn’t mean we will go back to twentieth-century-style dictatorships. Authoritarian regimes seem to be equally overwhelmed by the pace of technological development and the speed and volume of the data flow. In the twentieth century, dictators had grand visions for the future. Communists and fascists alike sought to completely destroy the old world and build a new world in its place. Whatever you think about Lenin, Hitler or Mao, you cannot accuse them of lacking vision. Today it seems that leaders have a chance to pursue even grander visions. While communists and Nazis tried to create a new society and a new human with the help of steam engines and typewriters, today’s prophets could rely on biotechnology and super-computers.”

VisionRevolutionArtificial IntelligenceBiotechnology
Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“We have more choice than ever before, but no matter what we choose, we have lost the ability to really pay attention to it.”

AttentionChoiceDistractionModernityAttention Span
Book:Homo Deus A Brief History of Tomorrow By Yuval Noah Harari & How We Got to Now Six Innovations that Made the Modern World By Steven Johnson 2 Books Collection Set
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“A diferencia de la física o de la economía, la historia no es un medio para hacer predicciones exactas. Estudiamos historia no para conocer el futuro, sino para ampliar nuestros horizontes, para comprender que nuestra situación actual no es natural ni inevitable y que, en consecuencia, tenemos ante nosotros muchas más posibilidades de las que imaginamos.”

HistoriaSociedadCivilizaciónHistoricismo
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“Las nuevas tareas agrícolas exigían tanto tiempo que la gente se vio obligada a instalarse de forma permanente junto a sus campos de trigo. Esto cambió por completo su modo de vida. No domesticamos el trigo. El término "domesticar" procede del latín domus, que significa "casa". ¿Quién vive en una casa? No es el trigo. Es el sapiens.”

HistoriaSociedadEvoluciónCultura
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“In 2019, I went on a tour of Chernobyl. The Ukrainian guide who explained what led to the nuclear accident said something that stuck in my mind. “Americans grow up with the idea that questions lead to answers,” he said. “But Soviet citizens grew up with the idea that questions lead to trouble.”

ChernobylUssrHarari
Book:Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
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“In the late twentieth century democracies usually outperformed dictatorships because democracies were better at data-processing. Democracy diffuses the power to process information and make decisions among many people and institutions, whereas dictatorship concentrates information and power in one place. Given twentieth-century technology, it was inefficient to concentrate too much information and power in one place. Nobody had the ability to process all the information fast enough and make the right decisions. This is part of the reason why the Soviet Union made far worse decisions than the United States, and why the Soviet economy lagged far behind the American economy. “However, soon AI might swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. AI makes it possible to process enormous amounts of information centrally. Indeed, AI might make centralised systems far more efficient than diffused systems, because machine learning works better the more information it can analyse. If you concentrate all the information relating to a billion people in one database, disregarding all privacy concerns, you can train much better algorithms than if you respect individual privacy and have in your database only partial information on a million people. For example, if an authoritarian government orders all its citizens to have their DNA scanned and to share all their medical data with some central authority, it would gain an immense advantage in genetics and medical research over societies in which medical data is strictly private. The main handicap of authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century – the attempt to concentrate all information in one place – might become their decisive advantage in the twenty-first century.”

DemocracyRussiaUsaArtificial IntelligenceDictatorships
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“On January 6, 2021, many Trump supporters observed the storming of the U.S. Capitol with enthusiasm. Trump supporters may explain that existing institutions are so dysfunctional that there is just no alternative to destroying them and building entirely new structures from scratch. But irrespective of whether this view is right or wrong, this is a quintessential revolutionary rather than conservative view. The conservative suicide has taken progressives utterly by surprise and has forced progressive parties like the U.S. Democratic Party to become the guardians of the old order and of established institutions. Nobody knows for sure why all this is happening. One hypothesis is that the accelerating pace of technological change with its attendant economic, social, and cultural transformations might have made the moderate conservative program seem unrealistic. If conserving existing traditions and institutions is hopeless, and some kind of revolution looks inevitable, then the only means to thwart a left-wing revolution is by striking first and instigating a right-wing revolution. This was the political logic in the 1920s and 1930s, when conservative forces backed radical fascist revolutions in Italy, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere as a way—so they thought—to preempt a Soviet-style left-wing revolution.”

RevolutionTrumpTransformationLiberalismFascismConservatismLeftismModerate
Book:Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
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“The fourth and ultimate method is to create a dogma, put our trust in some allegedly all-knowing theory, institution or chief, and follow them wherever they lead us. Religious and ideological dogmas are still highly attractive in our scientific age precisely because they offer us a safe haven from the frustrating complexity of reality. As noted earlier, secular movements have not been exempt from this danger. Even if you start with a rejection of all religious dogmas and with a firm commitment to scientific truth, sooner or later the complexity of reality becomes so vexing that one is driven to fashion a doctrine that shouldn’t be questioned. While such doctrines provide people with intellectual comfort and moral certainty, it is debatable whether they provide justice.”

RealityTruthJusticeDogmas
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“Our daily routines influence the lives of people and animals halfway across the world, and some personal gestures can unexpectedly set the entire world ablaze, as happened with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which ignited the Arab Spring, and with the women who shared their stories of sexual harassment and sparked the #MeToo movement.”

ConsequenceArab SpringConsequences Of Our ActionsButterfly EffectMetoo Movement21st Century Quotes
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“O compromisso secular mais importante é para com a verdade que se baseia em observações e em provas e não apenas na fé. Os secularistas procuram não confundir verdade com crença. Se temos uma crença muito forte numa determinada história, isso pode revelar muitas coisas interessantes sobre a nossa psicologia, a nossa infância e a nossa estrutura cerebral – mas isso não prova que a história seja verdadeira.”

PsicologiaVerdadeHistóriaYuval Noah HarariSecularismo
Book:21 lições para o século 21
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“Même si la mort paraît être un objectif lointain, nous avons déjà réalisé des choses qui étaient inconcevables voici quelques siècles. En 1199, le roi Richard Coeur de Lion fut touché par une flèche à l’épaule gauche. Aujourd’hui, nous parlerions d’une blessure mineure. En 1199, cependant, en l’absence d’antibiotiques et de méthodes de stérilisation efficaces, cette blessure s’infecta et ce fut la gangrène. Au XIIe siècle, la seule façon d’arrêter la gangrène était d’amputer le membre infecté. Pour une épaule, ce n’était pas possible. La gangrène progressa, sans que personne ne pût rien faire pour aider le roi. Il mourut quinze jours plus tard dans de grandes souffrances.”

ScienceMortSouffranceProgrèsBlessure
Book:Sapiens
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“This drives populists to be skeptical of the pursuit of truth, and to argue... that 'power is the only reality.' They thereby seek to undercut or appropriate the authority of any independent institutions that might oppose them. The result is a dark and cynical view of the world as a jungle and of human beings as creatures obsessed with power alone. All social interactions are seen as power struggles, and all institutions are depicted as cliques promoting the interests of their own members...”

PowerPopulists
Book:Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
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“One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion and my culture are the most important in the world – hence my interests should come before the interests of anyone else, or of humankind as a whole. How can we make nations, religions and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world?”

CultureNationalismHuman Stupidity
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“In 1939 war was probably a counterproductive move for the Axis powers – yet it did not save the world. One of the astounding things about the Second World War is that following the war the defeated powers prospered as never before. Twenty years after the complete annihilation of their armies and the utter collapse of their empires, Germans, Italians and Japanese were enjoying unprecedented levels of affluence. Why, then, did they go to war in the first place? Why did they inflict unnecessary death and destruction on countless millions? It was all just a stupid miscalculation. In the 1930s Japanese generals, admirals, economists and journalists concurred that without control of Korea, Manchuria and the Chinese coast, Japan was doomed to economic stagnation.8 They were all wrong. In fact, the famed Japanese economic miracle began only after Japan lost all its mainland conquests.”

WarJapanHuman StupidityEconomic Miracle
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“As long as he fought imaginary giants, Don Quixote was just play-acting. However once he actually kills someone, he will cling to his fantasies for all he is worth, because only they give meaning to his tragic misdeed. Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to those sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.”

FantasiesDon QuixoteFooling YourselfSunk Cost Fallacy
Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“Bis in die Spätmoderne hinein waren 90 Prozent der Menschheit Bauern, die jeden Morgen bei Sonnenaufgang aufstanden und m Schweiße ihres Angesichts ihr Land bestellten. Mit den Überschüssen, die sie erzeugten, ernährten sie eine kleine Elite von Königen, Beamten, Soldaten, Priestern, Künstlern und Denkern, die heute die Seiten der Geschichtsbücher füllen. Geschichte ist etwas, das eine kleine Minderheit tut, während die anderen Äcker pflügen und Wasser schleppen.”

EliteKritikGeschichteArbeitUngerechtigkeitBauernLandwirtschaftliche RevolutionMinderheit
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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