Sapiens Quotes - Page 2

Few men are of one plain decided colour most are mixed shaded and blended and vary as much from different situations as changeable silks do from different lights.

Lord Chesterfield

I often marvel how it is that though each man loves himself beyond all else he should yet value his own opinion of himself less than that of others.

Marcus Aurelius

It is more comfortable to feel that we are a slight improvement on a monkey than such a fallin' off fr'm th' angels.

Finley Peter Dunne

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.

Joseph Conrad

Man is at the bottom an animal midway a citizen and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.

Henry Ward Beecher

Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors and a misfit from the start.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

George Orwell

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

Robert Browning

Man as we know him is a poor creature but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction.

Dean William R. Inge

Mankind is an unco squad And muckle he may grieve thee.

Robert Burns

Many people believe they are attracted by God or by Nature when they are only repelled by Man.

Dean William R. Inge

Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Aldous Huxley

The cultivated man wise to know and bold to perform is the end to which nature works.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The middle class prefers comfort to pleasure convenience to liberty and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

Hermann Hesse

Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter-gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.

Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens don’t behave according to a cold mathematical logic, but rather according to a warm social logic. We are ruled by emotions.

Yuval Noah Harari

When humans began cultivating the land, they thought that the extra work this required will pay off. 'Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won't have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.' It made sense.If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan.The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children.Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases.They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty.

Yuval Noah Harari

There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.

Yuval Noah Harari

How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realize this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realize this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist.

Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens means wise or sapient... Wise means acceptance, not differentiation. Wise means helping, not fighting. Wise means assimilation, not destruction. Wise means harmony and peace, not dissension.

Abhijit Naskar

Together you are a species that grows in all aspects of life – separated you are a mere speck of dust in vast ocean of space-time capable of nothing progressive.

Abhijit Naskar

This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom - we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.

Yuval Noah Harari

This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

Yuval Noah Harari

As a species, wise, harmonious progress is our mission.

Abhijit Naskar

Huius (sapientis) opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire; ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia ...

Seneca

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Sapiens Quotes - Page 2

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