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‘Love’ is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

— Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

“It’s white on this side.”

— Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective . . . and the saddest sight of all is to see, far behind you, temptations you’ve resisted.

— Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

This truth can’t be stated in English any more than Beethoven’s Fifth can be.”

— Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

fold them until they are all corners—and shove them in your oubliette.

— Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

In the past, censorship worked by blocking the flow of information. In the twenty-first century, censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. People just don’t know what to pay attention to, and they often spend their time investigating and debating side issues.

— Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Meanwhile in the USA, paranoid Republicans accuse Barack Obama of being a ruthless despot hatching conspiracies to destroy the foundations of American society – yet in eight years of presidency he barely managed to pass a minor health-care reform. Creating new worlds and new humans is far beyond his agenda.

— Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the stronger the story becomes, because we desperately want to give meaning to these sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.

— Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance.

— Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Since the gods never died, and since they had no children to fight over their inheritance, they gathered more and more property and power. An increasing number of Sumerians found themselves employed by the gods, taking loans from the gods, tilling the gods’ lands and owing taxes and tithes to the gods. Just as in present-day San Francisco John is employed by Google while Mary works for Microsoft, so in ancient Uruk one person was employed by the great god Enki while his neighbour worked for the goddess Inanna. The temples of Enki and Inanna dominated the Uruk skyline, and their divine logos branded buildings, products and clothes. For the Sumerians, Enki and Inanna were as real as Google and Microsoft are real for us. Compared to their predecessors – the ghosts and spirits of the Stone Age – the Sumerian gods were very powerful entities.

— Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari