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

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When conflicted between two choices, take neither.

For a free person, the optimal—most opportunistic—route between two points should never be the shortest one.

Let us find what risks we can measure and these are the risks we should be taking.

Contra the prevailing belief, “success” isn’t being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies.

The first, and hardest, step to wisdom: avert the standard assumption that people know what they want.

You are free in inverse proportion to the number of people to whom you can’t say “fuck you.” But you are honorable in proportion to the number of people to whom you can say “fuck you” with impunity but don’t.

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the megalopsychos, which I translate as the magnificent, is the “great-souled” who thinks of himself as worthy of great things and, aware of his own position in life, abides by a certain system of ethics that excludes pettiness. This notion of great soul, though displaced by Christian ethics advocating humility, remains present in Levantine culture, with the literal Kabir al-nafs. Among other attributes, the magnificent walks slowly.

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

People laugh out loud and broadcast their laughter when they’re worried about the statement that they purportedly find funny. They would smile—perhaps surreptitiously—otherwise.

The general principle of antifragility: it is much better to do things you cannot explain than explain things you cannot do.

At any stage, humans can thirst for money, knowledge, or love; sometimes for two, never for three.