Yuval Noah Harari
Quotes
Throughout history, societies have suffered from two kinds of poverty: social poverty... withholds from some... the opportunities available to others; and biological poverty... puts... life... at risk due to lack of food and shelter. Perhaps social poverty can never be eradicated, but in many countries... biological poverty is a thing of the past.
Europeans were used to thinking and behaving in a scientific and capitalist way... before they enjoyed... technological advantage.
California['s] wealth was initially built on gold mines. But today it is... and ― Silicon Valley and the celluloid hills of Hollywood.
The era of personalised medicine... that matches treatment to DNA... has begun.
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, ... claimed the lives of... [~]2 million sailors. No one knew what caused it...
The Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable.
Columbus's fleet... of three small ships manned by 120 sailors... was like a trio of mosquitoes compared to Zheng He's drove of dragons.
Buddha’s recommendation was to stop... the pursuit of external achievements, but also the pursuit of inner feelings.
Religious holidays... have become shopping festivals.
[H]ow did humans organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts..? ...[H]umans created imagined orders and devised scripts... The imagined orders sustaining... networks... divided people into [a] make-believe hierarchy. Superiors got... the good things... Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they complained.
In 1847, British train companies put their heads together and agreed that henceforth all train timetables would be calibrated to Greenwich Observatory time. rather than the local times of Liverpool. Manchester and Glasgow.
Throughout most of history, women were often seen as the property of family or community. Modern states, on the other hand, see women as individuals, enjoying ecconimic and legal rights independently of their family and community.
