We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
—Yuval Noah Harari
Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable complete strangers to know how to treat one another without wasting the time and energy needed to become personally acquainted.
—Yuval Noah Harari
Happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.
—Yuval Noah Harari
It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time.
—Yuval Noah Harari
Nothing should be taken for granted, even if everybody believes it.
—Yuval Noah Harari
You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
—Yuval Noah Harari
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Stephen Fry English Actor, Writer
Oliver Sacks British Neurologist, Writer
Maurice Sendak American Writer, Illustrator
Harvey Fierstein American Actor
Carl Reiner American Comedian
Aaron Copland American Composer
Marcel Proust French Novelist
Allen Ginsberg American Poet
Roland Barthes French Literary Theorist
Jacinto Benavente Spanish Dramatist