Yuval Noah Harari

The domesticated chicken is the most widespread fowl ever.

Writing is born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master. Our computers have trouble understanding how Homo sapiens talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching Homo sapiens to talk, feel and dream in the language of numbers, which can be understood by computers.

Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less would weaken their immune system, and permanent settlements would be hotbeds of infectious disease.

Throughout history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives, just so that people will say, 'He is a real man!'

[F]ood surpluses... with... transportation technology... enabled... more people to cram together... into large villages, then... towns, and finally... cities, all... joined... by new kingdoms and commercial networks.

Anyone who has read... Alexander Solzhenitsyn knows how Communism's egalitarian ideal produced brutal tyrannies that tried to control every aspect of life.

[H]umans sowed seeds, watered plants, plucked weeds from the ground and led sheep to prime pastures. This.., they thought, would provide... more fruit, grain and meat. It was... the Agricultural Revolution.

People everywhere have divided themselves into men and women. And almost everywhere men have got the better deal, at least since the Agricultural Revolution.

[T]he meaning of 'manhood' and 'womanhood' have varied... from one society to another... scholars usually distinguish... 'sex'... [as] biological... and 'gender'... cultural... Sex is divided between males and females, and the qualities... are objective and... constant... Gender is divided between... (...some cultures recognise other categories). ...'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities [which] are inter-subjective and undergo ...changes.

A critical step was made sometime before the ninth century AD, when a new partial script was invented, one that could store and process mathematical data with unprecedented efficiency. This partial script was composed of ten signs, representing the numbers from 0 - 9. Confusingly, these signs were known as even though they were first invented by the Hindus.

According to the science of biology, people were not 'created'. They... evolved. And... not... to be 'equal'. ...Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by this... Their response is likely.., ‘...if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’ I have no argument with that. ...[B]elieving in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society.

At the time of the Cognitive Revolution, the planet was home to about 200 genera of large terrestrial mammals weighing over fifty kilograms. At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, only about one hundred remained. Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet's big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing or iron tools.