Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Dollar bills have absolutely no value except in our collective imagination, but everybody believes in the dollar bill. "

Yuval Noah Harari

Related Quotes:

" In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, it seemed that the liberal story had won. The liberal story says that humankind is inevitably marching towards a global society of free markets and democratic politics. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" People already have bionic arms and legs that work by the power of thought. And we increasingly outsource mental and communicative activities to computers. We are merging with our smartphones. Very soon, they will just be part of the body. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" In the 1990s and 2000s, the liberal story shaped not only the foreign policy of the United States and its allies, but also the domestic policies of governments across the world, from South Africa to Indonesia. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" For thousands of years, humans believed that authority came from the gods. Then, during the modern era, humanism gradually shifted authority from deities to people. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" I titled the book 'Homo Deus' because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities - in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" If we are allowed to do experiments on monkeys because we are superior to them in a certain way, then someone who is superior to me is allowed to do experiments on me. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" You need to constantly remind yourself what is the most important thing that is happening in the world - what is the most important thing that is happening in history. The discipline to have this focus is something I gained from meditation. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Nothing should be taken for granted, even if everybody believes it. "

Yuval Noah Harari

Taken For Granted

" Modernity is a deal. The entire contract can be summarised in a single phrase: humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" If you don't like the word 'religion,' you can replace it with 'ideology' - it's largely the same thing. At the heart of both religion and ideology is the question of authority and where authority is coming from. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" I think, in general, medicine in the 21st century will switch from healing the sick to upgrading the healthy... If you find ways to repair the memory damaged by Alzheimer's disease or dementia and so forth, it is very likely that the same methods could be used to upgrade the memory of completely healthy people. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" We can suspend disbelief about Harry Potter, and we do the same thing with God, and we do the same thing with human rights, and we do the same thing with money. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Homo sapiens does its best to forget the fact, but it is an animal. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" All animals communicate. What's special about gossip is that it's not about the here and now. You don't gossip about lions. You don't gossip about clouds. You only gossip about other people. And once you do, you can keep track of many more people - this is the basis for forming larger communities. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Increasingly, our decisions will be made by the algorithms that surround us. Whenever there is a big dilemma, you just ask Google what to do. And what kind of life is that? "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Ignorance is not too dangerous. If you combine it with power, then this is a toxic mix. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Science is telling us that the reason people die is not because some god said so or because the laws of nature mandate it. People always die because of technical problems. And every technical problem has, in principle, a technical solution. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Most people, they get overwhelmed by the religious stories, the nationalist stories, by the economic stories of the day, and take these stories to be the reality. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" We did not domesticate wheat; wheat domesticated us. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" You go to a Japanese restaurant and have a wonderful dish, and the thing to do is take a picture with your phone, put it on Facebook, and see how many likes you get. If you don't share your experiences, they don't become part of the data processing system, and they have no meaning. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" There is no limit to how much health you can provide people. "

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. "

Yuval Noah Harari

" Those who refuse to liberalise and globalise are doomed to failure. "

Yuval Noah Harari