20 aphorisms from Nassim Taleb

Every aphorism here is about a Procrustean bed of sorts — we humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which, on the occasion, has explosive consequences. [The Bed of Procrustes]

Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.

If your anger decreases with time, you did injustice; if it increases, you suffered injustice.

When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure.

You never win an argument until they attack your person.

Usually, what we call a "good listener" is someone with a skillfully polished indifference.

Most people fear being without audiovisual stimulation because they are too repetitive when they think and imagine things on their own.

To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers.

You don't become completely free by just avoiding to be a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.

Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.

People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels — people you don't want to resemble when you grow up.

In most debates, people seem to be trying to convince once another; but all they can hope for is new arguments to convince themselves.

The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.

It is much harder to write a book review for a book you've read than for a book you haven't read.

The calamity of the information age is that the toxicity of data increases much faster than its benefits.

The more frequently you look at data, the more noise you are disproportionally likely to get (rather than the valuable part called the signal); hence the higher the noise to signal ratio. And there is a confusion, that is not psychological at all, but inherent in the data itself.

Most info-web-media-newspaper types have a hard time swallowing the idea that knowledge is reached (mostly) by removing junk from people's heads.

Don't trust a man who needs an income — except if it is minimum wage. (Those in corporate captivity would do anything to "feed a family.")

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

The difference between magnificence and arrogance is in what one does when nobody is looking.