Yuval Harari: ON Why Boredom is Good For You

The inability to deal with boredom is one of our greatest weaknesses, and in almost any meaningful journey, you have to go through boredom.

My advice would be to really take the time to explore what is happening inside you and where do all these things really come from. So much of our expectations and our desires, they don't reflect any inner true self; they reflect a million manipulations done on us either by external forces or even by internal forces that we know so little about.

As we now talk, there are these corporations and governments that are busy trying to hack you, and you need to stay a few steps ahead of them.

Throughout human history, you're always influenced by your friends, your family, the culture around. And much of what people took to be their innermost desires and expectations, it actually came from outside.

The easiest people to manipulate are the people who believe in free will—the people who believe that their thoughts and desires and expectations, they reflect some authentic inner self, and they don't question, is this really the case?'

People are addicted not actually to the phone; people are addicted to the small rushes of excitement that they can get dozens of times a day every time they pick up the phone to see what's there.

We are in a unique situation in human history when, for the first time, we have no idea [what] the job market [will] look like in 20 or 30 years. That was never before the case in history.

When you connect with somebody through a phone or through a screen, again it's easier to deal with the problematic stuff because you can just shut the phone once it becomes problematic. And with a real person, you can't do that. Real relationships... they force you to deal with the difficult issues.

If you had to live your life based only on the inventions and creations of people from your nation, you would have a very miserable life—you'd probably be dead.

Whatever the monk cuts from his other vices he adds to his ego.