Book detail: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book compiles a series of concise, thought-provoking statements that explore philosophical concepts and offer practical wisdom.
The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.
Read more
“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”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“What fools call "wasting time" is most often the best investment.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Someone who says "I am busy" is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Only in recent history has "working hard" signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura .”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“What they call "play" (gym, travel, sports) looks like work.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social, and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“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.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“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.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“For the classics philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure; for me a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Mental clarity is the child of courage, not the other way around.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“For the robust, an error is information.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“You never win an argument until they attack your person.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“By setting oneself totally free of constraints, free of thoughts, free of this debilitating activity called work, free of efforts, elements hidden in the texture of reality start staring at you; then mysteries that you never thought existed emerge in front of your eyes.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Weak men act to satisfy their needs, stronger men their duties.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The traits I respect are erudition and the courage to stand up when half-men are afraid for their reputation. Any idiot can be intelligent.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“What I learned on my own I still remember”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“true humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“By all means, avoid words—threats, complaints, justification, narratives, reframing, attempts to win arguments, supplications; avoid words!”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Success is becoming in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms