# Quote — Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

> Throughout most of history, mathematics was an esoteric field that even educated people rarely studied seriously. In medieval Europe, logic, grammar and rhetoric formed the educational core... [M]athematics seldom went beyond simple arithmetic and geometry. ...The undisputed monarch of all science was theology.

- 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_14:_%22The_Discovery_of_Ignorance%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/throughout-most-of-history

## 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)