Procrustes stretched & amputated the limbs of travelers to make them fit his bed. The Bed of Procrustes (by Taleb) also happens to be a great book.
Here are some (dark) truths:
1. Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.
2. Your brain is most intelligent when you don’t instruct it on what to do.
3. If your anger decreases with time, you did injustice; if it increases, you suffered injustice.
4. It is harder to say no when you really mean it than when you don’t.
5. Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it.
6. A genius is someone with flaws harder to imitate than his qualities.
7. You remember emails you sent that were not answered better than emails that you did not answer.
8. The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.
9. My only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.
10. They agree that chess training only improves chess skills but disagree that classroom training (almost) only improves classroom skills.
11. 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).
