Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.

Here and there a Luddite holdout refuses to open an email account, just as thousands of years ago some human bands refused to take up farming and so escaped the luxury trap.

When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.

As everyone from ancient times till today knows, clerks and accountants think in a non-human fashion. They think like filing cabinets. This is not their fault.

The first principle of Buddhism is ‘Suffering exists. How do I escape it?’

The rich take great care managing their assets and investments, while the less well heeled go into debt buying cars and televisions they don’t really need.

if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.