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The test of the originality for an idea is not the absence of one single predecessor but the presence of multiple but incompatible ones.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

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Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Preludes, p. 5
Work: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, 2010
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.

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The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement.

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Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort.

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You want to be yourself, idiosyncratic; the collective (school, rules, jobs, technology) wants you generic to the point of castration.

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What fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.

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Topics

Creativity

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Ethical man accords his profession to his beliefs, instead of according his beliefs to his profession.

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

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You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.

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The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

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

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.