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

Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Rating: ★★★★★

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.

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