Howard Brown

“summed up decades of governmental experience by saying that ‘You can do many things with bayonets, but it is rather uncomfortable to sit on them.’ A single priest often does the work of a hundred soldiers – far more cheaply and effectively. Moreover, no matter how efficient bayonets are, somebody must wield them. Why should the soldiers, jailors, judges and police maintain an imagined order in which they do not believe? Of all human collective activities, the one most difficult to organise is violence. To say that a social order is maintained by military force immediately raises the question: what maintains the military order? It is impossible to organise an army solely by coercion. At least some of the commanders and soldiers must truly believe in something, be it God, honour, motherland, manhood or”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“the word that the Buddha used for suffering, dukkha, actually has the more subtle meaning of “pervasive unsatisfactoriness,” I was even more impressed. “Suffering” always sounded a bit melodramatic, even if a careful reading of history seemed to support it. “Pervasive unsatisfactoriness”
― Mark Epstein, Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life - Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy

“People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“The Cognitive Revolution is accordingly the point when history declared its independence from biology.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind