# Quote — Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

> Finally, in 1880, the British government took the unprecedented step of legislating that all timetables in Britain must follow Greenwich. For the first time in history, a country adopted a national time and obliged its population to live according to an artificial clock rather than local ones or sunrise-to-sunset cycles.

- Author: [Yuval Noah Harari](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari.md)
- Book: [Sapiens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari#Chapter_18:_%22The_Permanent_Revolution%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/finally-in-1880

## More from this book

> [P]erhaps happiness is synchronising... personal delusions.. with... prevailing collective delusions.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/p-erhaps-happiness-is-synchronising.md)

> We have... increased food production, built cities, established empires and created... trade networks. But did we decrease... suffering..? ...[M]assive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of individual Sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/we-have-increased.md)

> [C]ontradictions are culture’s engines, responsible for... creativity and dynamism... Just as... clashing musical notes... force... music forward.., discord in... thoughts, ideas and values compel us to think, reevaluate and criticise. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/c-ontradictions-are-cultures.md)