The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Incerto Book 4)

Author: NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

Rating: ★★★★★

Author: By: NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

Rating: ★★★★★

Book Notes: Bed of Procrustes is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand.

• They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status—but rarely for your wisdom.

• Much of the difference between what is work and what is leisure is branding.

• Hatred is much harder to fake than love. You hear of fake love; never of fake hate.

• Sometimes people ask you a question with their eyes begging you to not tell them the truth.

• People feel deep anxiety finding out that someone they thought was stupid is actually more intelligent than they are.

• Friendship that ends was never one; there was at least one sucker in it.

• When someone writes “I dislike you but I agree with you,” I read “I dislike you because I agree with you.”

• Life is about execution rather than purpose.

• If you get easily bored, it means that your BS detector is functioning properly; if you forget (some) things, it means that your mind knows how to filter; and if you feel sadness, it means that you are human.

• It is easier to fast than diet. You cannot be “slightly” kosher or halal by only eating a small portion of ham.

• Quite revealing of human preferences that more suicides come from shame or loss of financial and social status than medical diagnoses.

• Business wars are typically lost by both parties; academic wars are won by both sides.

• You will never know for sure if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich.

• There is no clearer sign of failure than a middle-aged man boasting of his performance in college.

• You want to avoid being disliked without being envied or admired.

• Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

• You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.

• Someone who says “I am busy” is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.

• For most, success is the harmful passage from the camp of the hating to the camp of the hated.

• People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels—people you don’t want to resemble when you grow up.

• It is a good practice to always apologize, except when you have done something wrong.

• You remember emails you sent that were not answered better than emails that you did not answer.

• The opposite of success is name-dropping.

• There are two types of people: those who try to win and those who try to win arguments.

• The fool views himself as more unique and others more generic; the wise views himself as more generic and others more unique.

• There are those who will thank you for what you gave them, and others who will blame you for what you did not give them.

• You often prefer those who find you interesting over those you find interesting.