913 Quotes by Yuval Noah Harari

Capitalism did not defeat communism because capitalism was more ethical, because individual liberties are sacred or because God was angry with the heathen communists. Rather, capitalism won the Cold War because distributed data processing works better than centralised data processing, at least in periods of accelerating technological change.

Just as there is no barrier between humans and other beings, neither is there a strict hierarchy. Non-human entities do not exist merely to provide for the needs of man. Nor are they all-powerful gods who run the world as they wish. The world does not revolve around humans or around any other particular group of beings.

We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.

Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching “the four Cs” – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.3 More broadly, they believe, schools should downplay technical skills and emphasize general-purpose life skills. Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, learn new things, and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.

The less political violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock at an act of terrorism.

Today the main economic assets consist of technical and institutional knowledge rather than wheat fields, gold mines, or even oil fields, and you just cannot conquer knowledge through war.

When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.

Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. Consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love and anger.

We now have a global ecology, a global economy, and a global science – but we are still stuck with only national politics.