The Bed of Procrustes (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Quotes edit see section history

• “They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status--but rarely for your wisdom.”

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• “To understand the liberating effect of asceticism, consider that losing all your fortune is much less painful than losing only half of it.”

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

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• “Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions.”

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• “Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.”

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• “I wonder whether a bitter enemy would be jealous if he discovered that I hated someone else.”

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• “Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.”

• “The book is the only medium left that hasn't been corrupted by the profane: everything else on your eyelids manipulates you with an ad.*”

• “Fitness is certainly the sign of strength, but outside of natural stimuli the drive to acquire fitness can signal some deep incurable weakness.”

• “Just as dyed hairi makes older men less attractive, it is what you do to hide your weaknesses that makes them repugnant.”

• “Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation."”

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

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• Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

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• If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead—the more precision, the more dead you are.

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• They think that intelligence is about noticing things that are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns).

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• 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.

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• Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions.

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• Usually, what we call a “good listener” is someone with skillfully polished indifference.

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• You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else’s narrative.

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• The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said.

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• Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.

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First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PN6271.T35 2011
• Dewey: 818.602

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › United States › History & Criticism
• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy
• Books › Reference › Quotations

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• New York Times Book Review: In his happily provocative new book of aphorisms, the fiscal prophet and self-appointed flâneur Nassim Nicholas Taleb aims particular scorn at anyone who thinks aphorisms require explanation. And he differentiates the aphorism from the equally short-form sound bite by noting that the aphorism enhances knowledge while the sound bite shrinks it.
• The Guardian Book Review: Procrustes, in Greek myth, was the cruel owner of an estate in Attica who abducted travellers and cut off their heads to ensure they fitted his bed perfectly. Every aphorism here is about a Procrustean bed of sorts: faced with the imperfection of the unknown and the unobserved, we humans tend to backfit the world into reductive categories such that only someone of my immense intellect is able to point out the inherent futility of modern life.
• The Independent Book Review: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Wall Street trader-turned- flâneur, is the author of two previous bestselling works of idiosyncratic non-fiction, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, on the subject of life's unpredictability. The Bed of Procrustes offers more of the same ("Writing is the art of repeating yourself without anyone noticing") and less of it too: it's a book of aphorisms that slays Taleb's familiar dragons as quickly as possible: "Most modern technologies are deferred punishment." Ker-pow!
• Black Swan Report Book Review: I can't tell when Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, is serious and when he's winking wildly in his newest book, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms. My bemused and befuddled response to the book is either a testament to my insight or ignorance. I freely throw my hands up in the air and declare that I do not know which it is.
• Guru Focus Book Review: Anyone who is familiar with Taleb’s previous works already knows of the insights that he can provide, and regardless of your thoughts on the book itself, he followed through yet again. While presenting more of a philosophical viewpoint on common day society and how it ties into the financial realm, Taleb takes a look at how the current players in the market would rather try to categorize and classify as much as they can without actually knowing all of the information.

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history