Sapiens Quotes

“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, קיצור תולדות האנושות

“There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“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have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.”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

“Huius (sapientis) opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire; ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia ...”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Sapient or Savage (The Sonnet)

To be or not to be,
That is not the question.
To be human or stay animal,
That is the question.
Human and animal,
What is the difference!
To be animal is to be selfish,
To be human is to go beyond the self.
There's more to life than us and them,
There's more to life than loss and gain.
There's more to life than money and fame,
There's more to life than dogmatic lanes.
To be or not to be, that is not the question.
Be sapient or stay savage, it's your decision.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability

“But the mistery of the woman is no less a mystery than death. Childbirth is no less a mystery; nor the flow of the mother's milk; nor the menstrual cycle -in its accord with the moon. The creative magic of the female body is a thing of wonder in itself.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume 1: Primitive Mythology

“El destino obliga a todos los miembros de la raza humana a comprender su aislamiento, su individualidad, su sometimiento abyecto a las duras condiciones de la existencia mortal.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“Scientific knowledge about the Universe could never be more than a tiny island in a vast sea of invincible ignorance.”
― David Layzer, Cosmogenesis: The Growth of Order in the Universe

“The moral contradictions of our ancestry should not prevent us from reaching a realistic assessment of who we are. When we do that, high hopes are still possible.”
― Richard W. Wrangham, The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution

“The Neanderthal graves and bear sanctuaries, our earliest certain evidences of religious ritual, point to an attempt to cope with the imprint of death.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume 1: Primitive Mythology

“But the mistery of the woman is no less a mystery than death. Childbirth is no less a mystery; nor the flow of the mother's milk; nor the menstrual cycle -in its acoord with the moon. The creative magic of the female body is a thing of wonder in itself.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume 1: Primitive Mythology

“For the human mind in its polarity of the male and female modes of experience, in its passages from infancy to adulthood and old age, in its toughness and tenderness, and in its continuing dialogue with the world, is the ultimate mythogenetic zone -the creator and destroyer, the slave and yet the master, of all the gods.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume 1: Primitive Mythology

“Existem algumas provas de que na verdade o tamanho do cérebro médio de um sapiens diminuiu desde a era da recolecção.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“História foi algo que um grupo muito pequeno de pessoas fez, enquanto todos os outros aravam os campos e carregavam baldes de água”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Es la tendencia expansiva, exploratoria del hombre, su curiosidad innata, la que constituye a la vez una gracia salvadora y un error mortal.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“El reconocimiento del yo desnudo, expuesto de manera indigna a los estragos del tiempo y el mundo, insoportable y altamente motivador, condena al hombre y a la mujer a llevar una carga y a sufrir por la vida y la muerte.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“Nuestras insignificantes debilidades se acumulan y multiplican, y se convierten en grandes males de Estado.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“A medida que nuestro poder tecnológico se expande, el peligro que planteamos aumenta, y las consecuencias de nuestra estupidez voluntaria se multiplican.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“Resulta cada vez más necesario que nos corrijamos a nosotros mismos, no a otros, y que aprendamos explícitamente lo que ello significa.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“Today we may be living in high-rise apartments with over-stuffed refrigerators, but our DNA still thinks we are in the Savannah. That’s what makes us spoon down an entire tub of Ben & Jerry when we find one in the freezer and wash it down with a jumbo Coke.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“The current threats to the biosphere are more than the consequences of human technologies. They are also the expression of Homo sapiens' animal nature.”
― Richard L. Currier, Unbound: How Eight Technologies Made Us Human and Brought Our World to the Brink

“La aparición del pensamiento simbólico marca una de las etapas fundamentales de la evolución humana.”
― Guido Tonelli, Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began

“We have mastered our surroundings, increased food production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world?”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Sapiens is the dawn,
Sapiens is the saint.
Sapiens is the bridge of heart,
Sapiens is the mend.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“Those who have been hurt once by history will probably be hurt again. And those who have been privileged by history will most likely enjoy more privileges”
― Yuval Noah Harari, A Brief History of Humanity By: Yuval Noah Harari- Hebrew Version(Only in Hebrew)-hebrew Literature/ History Book

“Hay que decir que nunca sobrevaloraremos la importancia del lenguaje en la vida de los seres humanos. En realidad, lo que hace que seamos humanos y no ya una especie más de simios es nuestra capacidad de hablar. Esto nos ha dado poder para crear una herencia social, de modo que nos es dado acumular el conocimiento amasado en el pasado, y nos ha dado también el poder de analizar la experiencia, que nos llega en forma muy caótica, y darle un sentido en función de nuestros particulares fines biológicos y sociales. Éste es el don más grande que el hombre jamás ha recibido o se ha dado a sí mismo, el don del lenguaje.
Pero hemos de recordar que a pesar de que el lenguaje nos es absolutamente esencial, puede ser también absolutamente fatal porque lo utilizamos indebidamente.”
― Aldous Huxley, Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience

“Hoy en día, después de dos guerras mundiales y tres revoluciones decisivas, sabemos que no existe por fuerza ninguna correlación entre la tecnología avanzada y la moralidad avanzada. Muchos hombres primitivos cuyo control sobre su entorno es rudimentario, se las ingenian a pesar de todo para ser felices, virtuosos y, dentro de sus limitaciones, creativos. A la inversa, los miembros de las sociedades civilizadas, poseídos por los recursos tecnológicos que les permiten ejercer un considerable control sobre el entorno, a menudo son llamativamente infelices, están inadaptados y en modo alguno son creativos; si bien la moral privada es tolerablemente buena, la conducta colectiva es salvaje, hasta el punto de rayar en la monstruosidad.”
― Aldous Huxley, Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience

“biology enables culture forbids”
― yuval harari

“Sapiens (Sonnet 1410)

Sapiens is a promise
to stand grounded in people,
Sapiens is a duty
to stand firm on principle.

Sapiens is an alarm
to wake up from apathy,
Sapiens is mindful revolt
against inherited atrocity.

Sapiens is rightful rebellion
against dehumanizing intellect,
Sapiens is sentient uproar
against puritanism boneheaded.

Sapiens is the saintly answer
to the clarion call of life,
True sapiens is saintly sapiens,
all else is desecration of life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Acreditamos numa ordem em particular não porque seja objetivamente verdadeira , mas porque acreditar nela permite-nos cooperar com eficácia e forjar uma sociedade melhor.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind