Taleb Again

I quote other people often. For one, I find quality quotes concise, interesting and obvious truths about things we often overlook. The other reason is, well, I am not all that original. After all, it is much easier to sound smart than it is to think. Some would call this intellectual plagiarism. I simply consider it edification of someone wiser. Either way, stealing quotes is not something I will be giving up any time soon, especially now that I have the latest book from Nassim Nicholas Taleb scheduled to show up in my mail box next week.

The Bed of Procrutes is a self-explained book of philosophical and practical aphorisms. From the few I have perused, I reckon these will be a bit deeper than what you would find in Poor Richard’s Almanac and maybe even a bit wittier than some of those Mark Twain penned. Either way, if his last book is any indication, I will be re-reading it multiple times.

A sampling, the first three from the first page:

The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself.

An Idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.

Pharmaceutical companies are better at inventing diseases that match existing drugs, rather than inventing drugs to match existing diseases.

Thought provoking. Look forward to reading the rest of it.

And yes, I expect I will be quoting from it often. (At least whenever I feel the need to sound smart.)