The Bed of Procrustes
Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Summary

Poignant and funny aphorisms to live by

Notes

The person you are most afraid to contradict is yourself

To bankrupt a fool, give him information

It is harder to say no when you really mean it then when you don’t

They will envy you for your success, wealth, intelligence, looks and status but rarely your wisdom

The main reason to go to school is to learn how not to think as the professor

If someone is making an effort to ignore you, he is not ignoring you

The dreams of having computers behave like humans is coming true with the transformation in a single generation of humans into computers

It is very powerful manipulation to let others win the small battle

Life is about execution rather than purpose

For life to be really fun, what you fear should line up with what you desire

You don’t become completely free by avoiding to be a slave, you also need to avoid becoming a monster

What fools call ‘wasting time’ is most often the best investment

The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor, the faster way to become poor is to socialize with the rich

You are rich if and only if the money you refuse tastes better than the money you accept

Preoccupation with efficiency is the main obstacle to a poetic, noble, elegant, robust and heroic life

People tend to whisper when they say the truth and raise their voice when they lie

3 most harmful addictions are heroin, carbs and a monthly salary

The only measure of success is how much time you have to kill

The difference b/w technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware they are not free

It is a curse to have ideas that people understand only when it’s too late

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing

Charm lies in the unsaid, the unwritten and the undisplayed. It takes mastery to control silence

In any subject, if you don’t feel that you know enough, you don’t know enough

The suckers trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don’t know rather than the reverse

Every human should have equality in probability (which we can control), not equality of outcome

People reveal much more about themselves while lying than when they tell the truth

Every angel is an asshole somewhere. Every asshole is an angel somewhere. 

Your duty is to scream those truths that one should shout but that are merely whispered

The difference b/w magnificence and arrogance is in what one does while no one is looking

The most pain inflicted on you will come from someone who at some point in your life cared about you

Robust is when you care about the few who like your work rather than the multitude who dislike it

For a free person, the optimal/most opportunistic route b/w two points should never be the shortest one

Those who can’t do shouldn’t teach

A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone who is blind to most of what others see

For the classics, philosophical insight was the profound of a life of leisure, for us, a life of leisure can be the product of philosophical insight

It takes a lot of intellect and confidence to accept what makes sense doesn’t make sense

The stock market in brief: participants are calmly waiting in line to be slaughtered while thinking it’s for a broadway show

Never take investment advice from someone who has to work for a living

Risk takers never complain. They do

Success isn’t being on top of a hierarchy, it’s standing outside all hierarchies

You know you have influence when people start noticing your absence more than the presence of others

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