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“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.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller with the passing of the centuries.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“But the most important finding of all is that 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.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“According to the science of biology, people were not ‘created’. They have evolved. And they certainly did not evolve to be ‘equal’. The idea of equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are ‘equal’? Evolution is based on difference, not on equality. Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences. This leads to the development of different qualities that carry with them different chances of survival. ‘Created equal’ should therefore be translated into ‘evolved differently’.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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Sedanur’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sedanur’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,007 books
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219 friends
7 books
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4 friends
135 books
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24 friends
1,068 books
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115 friends
286 books
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49 friends
62 books
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107 friends
21 books
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5 friends
6 books
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78 friends
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Art, Biography, Classics, Comics, Contemporary, Cookbooks, Crime, Ebooks, Fiction, Memoir, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Science, and Science fiction
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