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

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Almost all those caught making a logical fallacy interpret it as a “disagreement.”

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

We are hunters; we are only truly alive in those moments when we improvise; no schedule, just small surprises and stimuli from the environment.

For everything, use boredom in place of a clock, as a biological wristwatch, though under constraints of politeness.

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.

Never rid anyone of an illusion unless you can replace it in his mind with another illusion.

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

True humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing.

Another marker for charlatans: they don’t voice opinions that can get them in trouble.

You can only convince people who think they can benefit from being convinced.

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

Weak men act to satisfy their needs, stronger men their duties.

Any action one takes with the aim of winning an award, any award, corrupts to the core.

Ethical man accords his profession to his beliefs, instead of according his beliefs to his profession. This has been rarer and rarer since the Middle Ages.

Pure generosity is when you help the ingrate. Every other form is self-serving.*4

Multiplicative generosity: limit your generosity to those who, in turn, given the circumstances, would be equally generous toward others.

Accept the rationality of time, never its fairness and morality.

General principle: the solutions (on balance) need to be simpler than the problems.

Failure-resistant is achievable; failure-free is not.

Change your anchor to what did not happen rather than what did happen.

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

A risk that can’t be defined will also, probably, result in absolute ruin; risk of absolute ruin shouldn’t be taken because absolute ruin isn’t worth the benefit.

making complicated things simpler.

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

Wisdom that is hard to execute isn’t really wisdom.

he didn’t say explicitly (but knew): the magnificent (megalopsychos) is all about unconditionals.

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

Bad-mouthing is the only genuine, never faked expression of admiration.

it is not what you do to them but how you make them look that gets them angry;

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

If something looks irrational—and has been so for a long time—odds are you have a wrong definition of rationality.

If a conflict goes a long time w/o meeting it’s stated purpose, then it’s stated purpose was probably a lie

Knowing stuff others don’t know is most effective when others don’t know you know stuff they don’t know.

Hit them in the unknown, unknown. Operate where they’re blind—where they don’t know, what they don’t know.

An enemy who becomes a friend will stay a friend; a friend turned enemy will never become one.

Machiavellian

Used skillfully, a compliment will be much more offensive than any disparagement.

Humans need to complain just as they need to breathe. Never stop them; just manipulate them by controlling what they complain about and supply them with reasons to complain. They will complain but be thankful.

Wisdom isn’t about understanding things (and people); it is knowing what they can do to you.

Wisdom is the application of understanding.

matters that lie outside our field of observation, the unobserved and the unobservables—the unknown; what lies on the other side of the veil of opacity.

La Rochefoucauld);