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Famous Yuval Noah Harari Quotes

“When the faithful are asked whether God really exists, they often begin by talking about the enigmatic mysteries of the universe and the limits of human understanding. ‘Science cannot explain the Big Bang,’ they exclaim, ‘so that must be God’s doing.’ Yet like a magician fooling an audience by imperceptibly replacing one card with another, the faithful quickly replace the cosmic mystery with the worldly lawgiver. After giving the name of ‘God’ to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces. ‘We do not understand the Big Bang – therefore you must cover your hair in public and vote against gay marriage.’ Not only is there no logical connection between the two, but they are in fact contradictory. The deeper the mysteries of the universe, the less likely it is that whatever is responsible for them gives a damn about female dress codes or human sexual behaviour.”

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Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“Perhaps the deeper meaning of this commandment is that we should never use the name of God for political interests, economic ambitions, or our personal hatreds. People hate somebody and say "God hates him." People covet a piece of land and say "God wants it." The world would be a better place if we followed the third commandment more devotedly. You want to wage war on your neighbors and steal their land? Leave God out of it and find yourself some other excuse.”

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Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“When Nietzsche declared that God is dead, this is what he meant. At least in the West, God has become an abstract idea that some accept and others reject, but it makes little difference either way. In the Middle Ages, without a god I had no source of political, moral and aesthetic authority. I could not tell what was right, good or beautiful. Who could live like that? Today, in contrast, it is very easy not to believe in God, because I pay no price for my unbelief. I can be a complete atheist, and still draw a very rich mix of political, moral and aesthetical values from my inner experience. If I believe in God at all, it is my choice to believe. If my inner self tells me to believe in God – then I believe. I believe because I feel God’s presence, and my heart tells me He is there. But if I no longer feel God’s presence, and if my heart suddenly tells me that there is no God – I will cease believing. Either way, the real source of authority is my own feelings. So even while saying that I believe in God, the truth is I have a much stronger belief in my own inner voice.”

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Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“Religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order. The theory of relativity is not a religion, because (at least so far) there are no human norms and values that are founded on it. Football is not a religion because nobody argues that its rules reflect superhuman edicts. Islam, Buddhism and Communism are all religions, because all are systems of human norms and values that are founded on belief in a superhuman order.”

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Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“Secular ethics relies not on obeying the edicts of this or that god, but rather on a deep appreciation of suffering. For example, secular people abstain from murder not because some ancient book forbids it, but because killing inflicts immense suffering on sentient beings. There is something deeply troubling and dangerous about people who avoid killing just because ‘God says so’. Such people are motivated by obedience rather than compassion, and what will they do if they come to believe that their god commands them to kill heretics, witches, adulterers or foreigners?”

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Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“In order to manipulate humans, there is no need to physically hook brains to computers. For thousands of years prophets, poets, and politicians have used language to manipulate and reshape society. Now computers are learning how to do it. And they won’t need to send killer robots to shoot us. They could manipulate human beings to pull the trigger.”

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Book:Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
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“Priests discovered this principle thousands of years ago. It underlies numerous religious ceremonies and commandments. If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable. The more painful the sacrifice, the more convinced people are of the existence of the imaginary recipient. A poor peasant sacrificing a priceless bull to Jupiter will become convinced that Jupiter really exists, otherwise how can he excuse his stupidity? The peasant will sacrifice another bull, and another, and another, just so he won’t have to admit that all the previous bulls were wasted. For exactly the same reason, if I have sacrificed a child to the glory of the Italian nation, or my legs to the communist revolution, it’s enough to turn me into a zealous Italian nationalist or an enthusiastic communist. For if Italian national myths or communist propaganda are a lie, then I will be forced to admit that my child’s death or my own paralysis have been completely pointless. Few people have the stomach to admit such a thing.”

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Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“Generation für Generation beteten die Menschen zu jedem Gott, jedem Engel, jedem Heiligen, und sie erfanden unzählige Instrumente, Institutionen und Gesellschaftssysteme – trotzdem starben sie weiter millionenfach an Hunger, Epidemien und Gewalt. Viele Denker und Propheten kamen zu dem Schluss, Hunger, Krankheit und Krieg seien eben fester Bestandteil von Gottes kosmischem Plan oder unserer unvollkommenen Natur, und erst am Ende aller Zeit würden wir davon befreit werden.”

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Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“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!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. 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. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.”

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Book:קיצור תולדות האנושות
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“A lo largo de la historia, profetas y filósofos han argumentado que si los humanos dejábamos de creer en un gran plan cósmico, toda ley y orden desaparecerían. Pero en la actualidad, los que plantean la mayor amenaza para le ley y el orden globales son precisamente aquellas personas que continúan creyendo en Dios y Sus planes universales. La Siria temerosa de Dios es un lugar mucho más violento que la atea Holanda.”

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Book:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
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“In the 300 years of the crucifixion of Christ to the conversion of Emperor Constantine, polytheistic Roman emperors initiated no more than four general persecutions of Christians. Local administrators and governors incited some anti-Christian violence of their own. Still, if we combine all the victims of all these persecutions, it turns out that in these three centuries the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians. In contrast, over the course, of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions, to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.”

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Book:קיצור תולדות האנושות
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“A church typically told people to trust it because it possessed the absolute truth, in the form of an infallible holy book. A scientific institution, in contrast, gained authority because it had strong self-correcting mechanisms that exposed and rectified the errors of the institution itself. It was these self-correcting mechanisms, not the technology of printing, that were the engine of the scientific revolution. In other words, the scientific revolution was launched by the discovery of ignorance. Religions of the book assumed they had access to an infallible source of knowledge.”

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Book:NEXUS: A Brief History of Infomation Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Volume.1) [Japanese Edition]
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