Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
17 quotes
"The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"What I learned on my own I still remember"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy)."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"Love without sacrifice is like theft"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"What organized dating sites fail to understand is that the people are far more interesting in what they don't say about themselves."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
"If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms