44 ideas
| 6259 | Why can't a wise man doubt everything? [Montaigne] |
| 6263 | No wisdom could make us comfortably walk a wide beam if it was high in the air [Montaigne] |
| 23122 | Montaigne was the founding father of liberalism [Montaigne, by Gopnik] |
| 20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
| 20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
| 6258 | Virtue is the distinctive mark of truth, and its greatest product [Montaigne] |
| 6262 | We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne] |
| 12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
| 6260 | Sceptics say there is truth, but no means of making or testing lasting judgements [Montaigne] |
| 6261 | The soul is in the brain, as shown by head injuries [Montaigne] |
| 7496 | Rules and duties are based on the will, as that is all we control [Montaigne] |
| 7495 | Apart from the fear, dying is an easy duty [Montaigne] |
| 22269 | We must fight fiercely to hang on to the few pleasures which survive into old age [Montaigne] |
| 20482 | Virtue inspires Stoics, but I want a good temperament [Montaigne] |
| 20480 | There is not much point in only becoming good near the end of your life [Montaigne] |
| 20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
| 20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
| 20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
| 20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
| 20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
| 20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
| 20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
| 20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
| 20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
| 20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
| 20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
| 20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
| 20481 | Nothing we say can be worse than unsaying it in the face of authority [Montaigne] |
| 20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
| 20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
| 20479 | People at home care far more than soldiers risking death about the outcome of wars [Montaigne] |
| 20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
| 20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
| 20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
| 20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
| 20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
| 20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
| 20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
| 20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
| 20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
| 20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
| 20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
| 20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
| 20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |