The Bed of Procrustes
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
First hardcover edition
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| Author | Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | aphorisms, philosophy |
| Publisher | Random House (U.S.) |
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Publication date
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November 30, 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 128 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 978-1-4000-6997-2 (U.S.) |
| Preceded by | The Black Swan |
| Followed by | Antifragile |
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms is a philosophy book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb written in the aphoristic style. It was released on November 30, 2010 by Random House.[1] According to Taleb, the book "contrasts the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness." The title refers to a sadistic thug from Greek mythology who abducted travelers and forced them to lie in a special bed.[2]
The book is part of Taleb's four volume philosophical essay on uncertainty, titled the Incerto and covers the following books: Antifragile (2012), The Black Swan (2007–2010), Fooled by Randomness (2001) and The Bed of Procrustes (2010).
Selected Aphorisms
- What fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.
- A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.
- The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today’s employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.
- You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.
- Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.
- You can tell how uninteresting a person is by asking him whom he finds interesting.
- Preoccupation with efficacy is the main obstacle to a poetic, elegant, robust and heroic life.
- Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
- They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking “outside the box”; and when they die they are put in a box.
References
Further reading
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External links
- Book on author's website
- New York Times review
- Random House webpage for the book
