The Bed of Procrustes

Counter Narratives The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said. - When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure. - It is harder to say no when you really mean it than when you don t. Never say no twice if you mean it. - Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it. - The only objective definition of aging is when a person starts to talk about aging. - They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status but rarely for your wisdom. - Most of what they call humility is successfully disguised arrogance.

If you want people to read a book, tell them it is overrated. - You never win an argument until they attack your person. - Nothing is more permanent than temporary arrangements, deficits, truces, and relationships; and nothing is more temporary than permanent ones. - The most painful moments are not those we spend with uninteresting people; rather, they are those spent with uninteresting people trying hard to be interesting. - Hatred is love with a typo somewhere in the computer code, correctable but very hard to find. I wonder whether a bitter enemy would be jealous if he discovered that I hated someone else. - The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality without exploiting them for fun and profit. - The test of whether you really liked a book is if you reread it (and how many times); the test of whether you really liked someone s company is if you are ready to meet him again and again the rest is spin, or that variety of sentiment now called self-esteem. - We ask why is he rich (or poor)? not why isn t he richer (or poorer)? why is the crisis so deep? not why isn t it deeper? Hatred is much harder to fake than love. You hear of fake love; never of fake hate. - The opposite of manliness isn t

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to problems of uncertainty, probability, and knowledge. He spent nearly two decades as a businessman and quantitative trader before becoming a full-time philosophical essayist and academic researcher in 2006. Although he spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés, he is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute. His main subject matter is “decision making under opacity”—that is, a map and a protocol on how we should live in a world we don’t understand.
 
Taleb’s books have been published in forty-one languages.

Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb
 
The most prophetic voice of all. GQ
 
The hottest thinker in the world. Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times (London)
 
[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne. The Wall Street Journal
 
Idiosyncratically brilliant. Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times