Yuval Noah Harari
240 quotes
Biography
"Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history… At first sight, domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors. Wild buffaloes spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites, floods and droughts. Domesticated cattle, by contrast, enjoy care and protection from humans. People provide cows and calves with food, water and shelter, they treat their diseases, and protect them from predators and natural disasters. True, most cows and calves sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse. Yet does that make their fate any worse than that of wild buffaloes? Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man? Are crocodile teeth kinder than steel blades?"
"Democracies die not only when people are not free to talk but also when people are not willing or able to listen."
"Homo erectus, 'Upright Man,' [survived] for close to 2 million years, making it the most durable human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2 million years is really out of our league."
"The Stone Age should be more accurately be called the Wood Age, because most of the tools used by the ancient hunter-gatherers were made of wood."
"Most of the infectious diseases that have plagued agricultural and industrial societies (such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis) originated in domestic animals and were transferred to humans only after the Agricultural Revolution."
"Animism is not a specific religion. It is a generic name for thousands of very different religions, cults and beliefs. What makes all of them 'animist' is this common approach to the world and man's place in it."
"Theism (from 'theos', 'god' in Greek) is the view that the universal order is based on a hierarchical relationship between humans and a small group of of eternal entities called gods."
"It's common... to explain... everything as the result of climate change, but... earth's climate... is in constant flux. Every event in history occurred against the background of... climate change. ...[O]ur planet has experienced numerous cycles of cooling and warming."
"No other animal [Homo sapiens] had ever moved into such a huge variety of habitats so quickly."
"The Galápagos Islands... remained uninhabited by humans until the nine-teenth century.., preserving a unique menagerie..."
"Don't believe... that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record... for driving the most plant and animal species to... extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology."
"[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."
"Even today, with all our advanced technology, more than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants... our ancestors domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC - wheat, rice, maize (called 'corn' in US), potatoes, millet and barley. No noteworthy plant and animal has been domesticated in the last 2000 years."
"The Agricultural Revolution... enlarged the... total... food.., but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. ...[I]t translated into population explosion and pampered elites."
"According to... evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction, wheat has become one of the most successful plants in the history of the earth."
"Worldwide, wheat covers about 2.25 million square kilometres of the globe's surface, almost ten times the size of Britain."
"[T]he new agricultural tasks demanded so much time... people were forced to settle permanently next to their wheat field. ...[W]heat... domesticated us."
"Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory, and... enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially."
"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."
"The structures at are dated to about 9500 BC, and all available evidence indicates that they were built by s."
"In the conventional picture, pioneers first built a village, and when it prospered, they set up a temple... But suggests... the temple may have been built first..."
"The agricultural revolution is one of the most controversial events in history. Some... proclaim... it set humankind on the road to prosperity and progress. Others... that it has led to perdition."
"From the dawn of agriculture.., billions... armed with branches, swatters, shoes and poison sprays have waged... wars against diligent ants, furtive roaches, adventurous spiders and misguided beetles that constantly infiltrate the human domicile."
"[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."
"Yugoslavia in 1991 had more than enough... to feed all... and... disintegrated into a... bloodbath."